"The 75mm cannon was selected for the M3 Lee because it was good at anti tank warfare, this never changed."
A gentleman by the name of Nicholas "The Chieftain" Moran is in a bit of a crusade. He brings some real documents and facts to the table about World War II american tanks, and counters the most common myths related to them in a witty and informative presentation.
In order, the myths he tackles are
Names of tanks, what nation named the american tanks, and question the validity of some nicknames.
"-The british named it General Jackson!- The british never used it, why would they give it a name?!"
Tanks as explotation weapons and infantry support, were tanks really not meant to fight other tanks?
"(...) This is in the doctrine! This is the written manual!-You're in a tank, you kill tanks.-"
Tank destroyers, were they really the only thing that should engage enemy tanks?
"(...) Even in the offense, tank destroyers were held in reserve. So that meant that if you met a tank while you're attacking, anything but a tank destroyer is supposed to kill that tank that you meet."
The M26 Pershing, would it really have been able to join the fight earlier?
"(...) Well, this is a scan of a document dated December of '44, 29th of December (...) It says: -The Armored Board concludes that the Heavy Tank, T26E1, as tested, is unsatisfactory and not battleworthy(...)-"
The M4's iconic weapon, was the 75mm, kept because HE capability or doctrine?
"(...) The tank batallion commanders did not want (the 76mm M4 Shermans), they didn't see any purpose in changing their logistical requirements, crew training; the 75 milimeters they had were killing Panthers, they were killing Tigers in Italy, what was the problem?"
The Firefly, another model of the iconic Sherman, wasn't used by the US because they didn't make it?
"(...) The 76mm in that tiny (Sherman M4 "Quick Fix") turret was rejected, the 17 pounder was a much bigger gun, so you can imagine what the Armored Board thought of THAT when they saw it."
"Quantity" versus "Quality", US needed 5 Shermans to destroy any kind of "cat" in the battlefield?
"(...) A Platoon was 5 tanks! That is the smallest tactical unit in the battlefield! You don't go anywhere with 1 or 2 tanks, you go around as a platoon!"
Shermans, where they armored coffins?
"(...) Sloping of armor (...) this means that the Sherman has almost as much frontal armor as the Tiger does, this is not bad! The difference was the gun, the TIger's gun was much better than the Sherman's (...) But not everything was a Tiger, the 50mm the 75mm, they would bounce off a Sherman more often than not."
Corollary to the previous myth, didn't the Shermans burn easily?
"Sort of... If you shoot anything enough times it'll burn, and a burning tank cannot be repaired... So just because the enemy has gotten out of the tank doesn't mean that you shouldn't continue to shoot it so that the enemy cannot recover the tank later."
And lastly, the fans of planes in World War 2 might feel threatened. Did tactical air kill tanks?
"(...) Tactical air did not have any significant practical effect against tanks. (...) You could kill the supporting structures, you could kill the troopers, and most importantly, you had the morale effect. So if you were the german guy, you see airplane after airplane coming at you with rockets, you didn't care if it didn't hit you, you were NOT having a good day(...)"
Myths of American armor.
Myths of American armor.
Last edited by Armacalic on 07 Aug 2015, 04:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Warhawks97
- Posts: 5395
- Joined: 23 Nov 2014, 21:45
- Location: Germany
Re: Myths of American armor.
Build more AA Walderschmidt
Re: Myths of American armor.
Funnily enough, I'd see all but the book links before.
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Warhawks97
- Posts: 5395
- Joined: 23 Nov 2014, 21:45
- Location: Germany
Re: Myths of American armor.
when i am studying arround about ww2 units. Allieds and axis, K/D´s etc etc etc i already figured out that US here in game are more like the russians had been in ww2. Just send many units, take many losses, use crap units. But US units generally hadnt been as crap actually. That axis had some tanks causing trouble to allied is true. But generally i think this "quality vs quanity" is too extrem and exagerated.
I would give both sides some quantitative and quality units. Allieds strenght should actually be flexibility (vehicles, mobile arty and transport options, number of tanks, good off map support, good basic equipment with M1. Axis better weapon upgrades being not more expensive as allied upgrades, strong tanks supported by elite inf able to make brutal sudden breakthrough attacks (mainly panther and few very big tanks) and TD´s with good ambush options. Arty less flexibel and vehicles very depending on doctrines. Also less off map support. It shuld also be less possible to counter arty by overspam defenses. Arty also playing an important part for all factions and doctrines as arty and airplanes are what made ww2 to be a mobile warfare, not a static one.
A funny fact is, what many dont belive is that axis also had to use superior numbers to make an successfull attack against the western allied. In 44 western allied did need a 2:1 ratio for an successfull attack (not 5:1 as many say). But axis also did need a 3:2 quantitative superiority to do an successfull attack. Only on eastern front axis could beat superior enemie numbers even during offense.
So yeah... this quantity vs quality is a bit too exaggerated... that it exist, ok, but not so crazy. Best sample US inf doc which reminds me more on russian tactic lol.
And strong defenses would never need to be cracked via russian style sending millions into death when playing as allied.
I would give both sides some quantitative and quality units. Allieds strenght should actually be flexibility (vehicles, mobile arty and transport options, number of tanks, good off map support, good basic equipment with M1. Axis better weapon upgrades being not more expensive as allied upgrades, strong tanks supported by elite inf able to make brutal sudden breakthrough attacks (mainly panther and few very big tanks) and TD´s with good ambush options. Arty less flexibel and vehicles very depending on doctrines. Also less off map support. It shuld also be less possible to counter arty by overspam defenses. Arty also playing an important part for all factions and doctrines as arty and airplanes are what made ww2 to be a mobile warfare, not a static one.
A funny fact is, what many dont belive is that axis also had to use superior numbers to make an successfull attack against the western allied. In 44 western allied did need a 2:1 ratio for an successfull attack (not 5:1 as many say). But axis also did need a 3:2 quantitative superiority to do an successfull attack. Only on eastern front axis could beat superior enemie numbers even during offense.
So yeah... this quantity vs quality is a bit too exaggerated... that it exist, ok, but not so crazy. Best sample US inf doc which reminds me more on russian tactic lol.
And strong defenses would never need to be cracked via russian style sending millions into death when playing as allied.
Build more AA Walderschmidt
Re: Myths of American armor.
Well, the russian weapons weren't actually that bad, the T-34 tanks were actually one of the best tanks in the war. As for the in game americans, at least in vCoH, losses did set you back quite a lot, so you can't really go around not caring about losses.
The major problem is that some tactics that were used cannot be represented in game because of engine limitations.
Take for instance the "Winner of a fight between a Sherman and a Panther" scenario. In real life Shermans only needed to get a few meters to the side to penetrate the Panther's armor, which is not possible in game, because there's only frontal and rear armor. Unit performance is hardly dimished by actual combat unlike in real life, either. So no stuff like "Once you do get the first shot off you're usually calm and collected, while the enemy is suffering a significant emotional event."
The major problem is that some tactics that were used cannot be represented in game because of engine limitations.
Take for instance the "Winner of a fight between a Sherman and a Panther" scenario. In real life Shermans only needed to get a few meters to the side to penetrate the Panther's armor, which is not possible in game, because there's only frontal and rear armor. Unit performance is hardly dimished by actual combat unlike in real life, either. So no stuff like "Once you do get the first shot off you're usually calm and collected, while the enemy is suffering a significant emotional event."
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ShadowIchigo
- Posts: 340
- Joined: 26 Nov 2014, 20:25
- Location: Philadelphia Born N Raized, US
Re: Myths of American armor.
Yea russians had some of the best tanks during the war. Biggest problem was that they were blitzkrieged and steamrolled so they didnt have enough time to do effective and efficient mass production.
Re: Myths of American armor.
What always impressed me reading the Eastern Front Battles Stats, was the ratio of losses between the russians and germans.
Sometime the ratio of forces on the battleground was near 5:1 BUT the losses were near 1:2 ... Oo
This clearly explain that germans forces were more effective and what really did the difference was the number.
Sometime the ratio of forces on the battleground was near 5:1 BUT the losses were near 1:2 ... Oo
This clearly explain that germans forces were more effective and what really did the difference was the number.
Company Of Heroes is the 'water gun version' of Blitzkrieg Mod" (Heinz Wilhelm Guderian, 1939)
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ShadowIchigo
- Posts: 340
- Joined: 26 Nov 2014, 20:25
- Location: Philadelphia Born N Raized, US
Re: Myths of American armor.
crimax wrote:What always impressed me reading the Eastern Front Battles Stats, was the ratio of losses between the russians and germans.
Sometime the ratio of forces on the battleground was near 5:1 BUT the losses were near 1:2 ... Oo
This clearly explain that germans forces were more effective and what really did the difference was the number.
Well i think it also has to do with the very few numbers of specialized and highly trained inf in the red amy. They had some but not many. Many were just conscripts. I mean look at soviets snipers, a trained marksmen, and just one markmens was able to pull off 200+ kills. Soviets are also famous for their marksmen. Oh and did you forget that stalin also contributed to that high loss ratio to his own men?
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Warhawks97
- Posts: 5395
- Joined: 23 Nov 2014, 21:45
- Location: Germany
Re: Myths of American armor.
The prob on east front was:
the russians had no capable experienced commanders. Due to internal fights for power etc etc, controle (ideology and revolutions?) many once capable officers got chased or had to leave the army. Another problem was the quality of their materials and they had by far less steel and raw mateial production as axis, expcet oil.
So they lacked experienced soldiers, commander, strategy and quality of materials. Their first tanks had no radio and russian was open field so once axis got their long barreld tanks the russians suffered a lot. During kursk one russian general did send his own light t70 tanks into a Panther formation that was awaiting orders and having mechanical problems. The russian tanks did drive over their own made defenses driving over their own ditches and flipping over. Stalin first wanted to shoot that general.
Also attacks came surprisingly and when axis got to stalingard the russians first had to move their factories to sibiria. Their first T34 tanks that came out of factory were supposed to get not farther than 340 kilometers. When t34 went to US for tirals the US called it insufficiend. They broke down right after 340 kilomters. The russian officer said, that this is enough to get out of the factory and to ram an axis tank. That was their entire purpose at first.
The tank commanders had also no copula with optical square and always had to open their hatch to look arround and commander had also the job to aim with the gun.
The russians simply only build figher planes (which hadnt been bad, esspecially later LaGG 5 N and yak 3) and destroyer planes like the Pe-2 and IL2 tons of arty (which was very cool. Different calibres with long and short range but generally very lightand easy to use and many (103.000 thousand ZiS 3 76 mm guns build used as arty and AT gun and easy to handle by novices even). For me the russians had second best artillery after US due to their flexibility when US gave them trucks). The entire infrastructure like railways, thousands of trucks which allowed high flexibility (not few say that US trucks won the war for russians) got provided by US.
When russians gain the initiative after Stalingrad kursk new improved tanks but also tank destroyers helped to use this new initiative to cause major losses to axis. The tanks got improved a lot without reducing their production figures whcih even increased farther getting copulas and radio (28 thousand T34/85 with 85 mm build alone from 44 till end of war! The russians build in a month more T-34/85 as axis build Panther in one year but also capable TD´s like ISU 152, 122 and IS2 also in thousands). At the end they had a very high flexibility, capable tanks and reliable tanks, arty and airforce. Their commanders got more experienced.
The K/D´s esspecially in arround 43-45 had few reasons.
1. Open field
2. Aggressive tank offensives
3. Axis usually only in defense and ambushes with long range guns.
4. Panzerfaust for everyone when it came to urban fights which killed just as many tanks as german tanks did!
So you need to take these things into acc. In fact the T34 was such a thread and superior to axis tanks that the stug was taken away from the infantry support role and becoming the first axis TD with long 75 mm L/43 and L/48 and for a year this tank was the only one on axis side able to beat the T-34. The T34 at that time took so many losses coz of the above mention superior axis tactics and experience. But same in france. The allied Tanks had been always stronger to axis tanks in 1 vs 1 but axis won due to radio, combined arms and flexibility and strategy.
So its funny to see. When allied had superior tanks (in 1 vs with other tank) when it comes to armor and firepower then axis won with "inferior tanks which had not even a canon at that time and those who had only stubby canons for HE puropse and inf support role. When axis got their "big superior tanks" with big armor and gun they just got pushed into the defense.
So ww2 clearly has shown that not the biggest gun and armor did matter on tanks but rather the flexibility, easy maintanance, correct strategy and capable crews and fuel. Big armor and gun was only usefull when having sufficient support of smaller tanks arround and enough maintanace and sufficient serviceability and thats were axis made the mistake and where i think their biggest tanks got completely overestimated in their efficency. Despite their K/D´s (mostly because of their superior defensive positions they never managed to gain an initiative on long term. Coz wherever they advanced they got cut off from supply and got surrounded. And when they attacked it just did need a cheap special AT weapon to kill them or stop them just as easily as killing a medium tank and thats what happend. The introduction of slightly improved weapons on allied tanks and creating of cheap powerfull defensive weapons managed to neutralize the offensive strenght of these material and work intensive steel monsters. They could then stop enemie attacks for a longer time but where also unable to start an assault by their own.
So from K/d big tanks might have been worth to build, but from a tactical and strategic point of view simply unworthy. The Panther is a medium tank btw and the only tank germans should have build once they solved the maintanace issues. Only stugs and Panther G´s, nothing else. Special TD´s like the guderian duck (Jagdpanzer IV) should not have been build offering no real advanatge over stugs but costing a way more. Stugs, panther, hetzer, Jagdpanther. No tactically and expensive stuff like tiger, KT, or elephant or if then only few tigers. That way that could have used their available chassis to full efficency but also increasing the production of those few. So despite K/D´s and mainly psychologic affect axis big tanks had little impact on any tactical or strategiuc output and tiger woud have made sense only in their original doctrine as breakthrough and spearhead tank but before allied got their "special counters" to it.
Axis superiority was smainly based on their discipline (esspecially SS units and luftwaffe) and their revolutionary tactis and combined forces. Their new use of tanks and infantry squads with focusing a lot on their again revolutionary G designs of mg34 and mg42. Their skilled pilots which got trained in very young years, farther skilled by highly experienced aces acting as group leaders (while US withdrawn all aces in order to sell war bonds lol) and also their new organisation of fighter squadrons that could easily divided into always smaller groups untill having the smallest group, the "win of fighter planes" or simply "Rotte". All other nations later copied the axis strategy. The russians managed to fight axis with their own Blitzkrieg strategy by using highly flexible armored forces doing deep attacks into enemie territory and surrounding the enemie and supported by attack planes and taking air superiority first.
The US finally brought the army to perfection with an incredible flexibility and logistics and air superiority.
The axis finally failed and did the mistake the allieds did first: Lacking flexibility. Instead of getting much more cheap fighter planes (Me 109, fw 190) and attack planes (Me 110, has 129, me 410) and many capable medium tanks (panther, stug, Tank IV) the axis rather wasted their ressources foolishly in too many 88 AA batteries, tanks like elephant and KT´s and even tigers and "super artillery guns" which weight up to 50-75 tons, if not more.
the russians had no capable experienced commanders. Due to internal fights for power etc etc, controle (ideology and revolutions?) many once capable officers got chased or had to leave the army. Another problem was the quality of their materials and they had by far less steel and raw mateial production as axis, expcet oil.
So they lacked experienced soldiers, commander, strategy and quality of materials. Their first tanks had no radio and russian was open field so once axis got their long barreld tanks the russians suffered a lot. During kursk one russian general did send his own light t70 tanks into a Panther formation that was awaiting orders and having mechanical problems. The russian tanks did drive over their own made defenses driving over their own ditches and flipping over. Stalin first wanted to shoot that general.
Also attacks came surprisingly and when axis got to stalingard the russians first had to move their factories to sibiria. Their first T34 tanks that came out of factory were supposed to get not farther than 340 kilometers. When t34 went to US for tirals the US called it insufficiend. They broke down right after 340 kilomters. The russian officer said, that this is enough to get out of the factory and to ram an axis tank. That was their entire purpose at first.
The tank commanders had also no copula with optical square and always had to open their hatch to look arround and commander had also the job to aim with the gun.
The russians simply only build figher planes (which hadnt been bad, esspecially later LaGG 5 N and yak 3) and destroyer planes like the Pe-2 and IL2 tons of arty (which was very cool. Different calibres with long and short range but generally very lightand easy to use and many (103.000 thousand ZiS 3 76 mm guns build used as arty and AT gun and easy to handle by novices even). For me the russians had second best artillery after US due to their flexibility when US gave them trucks). The entire infrastructure like railways, thousands of trucks which allowed high flexibility (not few say that US trucks won the war for russians) got provided by US.
When russians gain the initiative after Stalingrad kursk new improved tanks but also tank destroyers helped to use this new initiative to cause major losses to axis. The tanks got improved a lot without reducing their production figures whcih even increased farther getting copulas and radio (28 thousand T34/85 with 85 mm build alone from 44 till end of war! The russians build in a month more T-34/85 as axis build Panther in one year but also capable TD´s like ISU 152, 122 and IS2 also in thousands). At the end they had a very high flexibility, capable tanks and reliable tanks, arty and airforce. Their commanders got more experienced.
The K/D´s esspecially in arround 43-45 had few reasons.
1. Open field
2. Aggressive tank offensives
3. Axis usually only in defense and ambushes with long range guns.
4. Panzerfaust for everyone when it came to urban fights which killed just as many tanks as german tanks did!
So you need to take these things into acc. In fact the T34 was such a thread and superior to axis tanks that the stug was taken away from the infantry support role and becoming the first axis TD with long 75 mm L/43 and L/48 and for a year this tank was the only one on axis side able to beat the T-34. The T34 at that time took so many losses coz of the above mention superior axis tactics and experience. But same in france. The allied Tanks had been always stronger to axis tanks in 1 vs 1 but axis won due to radio, combined arms and flexibility and strategy.
So its funny to see. When allied had superior tanks (in 1 vs with other tank) when it comes to armor and firepower then axis won with "inferior tanks which had not even a canon at that time and those who had only stubby canons for HE puropse and inf support role. When axis got their "big superior tanks" with big armor and gun they just got pushed into the defense.
So ww2 clearly has shown that not the biggest gun and armor did matter on tanks but rather the flexibility, easy maintanance, correct strategy and capable crews and fuel. Big armor and gun was only usefull when having sufficient support of smaller tanks arround and enough maintanace and sufficient serviceability and thats were axis made the mistake and where i think their biggest tanks got completely overestimated in their efficency. Despite their K/D´s (mostly because of their superior defensive positions they never managed to gain an initiative on long term. Coz wherever they advanced they got cut off from supply and got surrounded. And when they attacked it just did need a cheap special AT weapon to kill them or stop them just as easily as killing a medium tank and thats what happend. The introduction of slightly improved weapons on allied tanks and creating of cheap powerfull defensive weapons managed to neutralize the offensive strenght of these material and work intensive steel monsters. They could then stop enemie attacks for a longer time but where also unable to start an assault by their own.
So from K/d big tanks might have been worth to build, but from a tactical and strategic point of view simply unworthy. The Panther is a medium tank btw and the only tank germans should have build once they solved the maintanace issues. Only stugs and Panther G´s, nothing else. Special TD´s like the guderian duck (Jagdpanzer IV) should not have been build offering no real advanatge over stugs but costing a way more. Stugs, panther, hetzer, Jagdpanther. No tactically and expensive stuff like tiger, KT, or elephant or if then only few tigers. That way that could have used their available chassis to full efficency but also increasing the production of those few. So despite K/D´s and mainly psychologic affect axis big tanks had little impact on any tactical or strategiuc output and tiger woud have made sense only in their original doctrine as breakthrough and spearhead tank but before allied got their "special counters" to it.
Axis superiority was smainly based on their discipline (esspecially SS units and luftwaffe) and their revolutionary tactis and combined forces. Their new use of tanks and infantry squads with focusing a lot on their again revolutionary G designs of mg34 and mg42. Their skilled pilots which got trained in very young years, farther skilled by highly experienced aces acting as group leaders (while US withdrawn all aces in order to sell war bonds lol) and also their new organisation of fighter squadrons that could easily divided into always smaller groups untill having the smallest group, the "win of fighter planes" or simply "Rotte". All other nations later copied the axis strategy. The russians managed to fight axis with their own Blitzkrieg strategy by using highly flexible armored forces doing deep attacks into enemie territory and surrounding the enemie and supported by attack planes and taking air superiority first.
The US finally brought the army to perfection with an incredible flexibility and logistics and air superiority.
The axis finally failed and did the mistake the allieds did first: Lacking flexibility. Instead of getting much more cheap fighter planes (Me 109, fw 190) and attack planes (Me 110, has 129, me 410) and many capable medium tanks (panther, stug, Tank IV) the axis rather wasted their ressources foolishly in too many 88 AA batteries, tanks like elephant and KT´s and even tigers and "super artillery guns" which weight up to 50-75 tons, if not more.
Build more AA Walderschmidt
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ShadowIchigo
- Posts: 340
- Joined: 26 Nov 2014, 20:25
- Location: Philadelphia Born N Raized, US
Re: Myths of American armor.
The russians would also had superior close air support and air power if it werent due to lack of radio equipment. Haha it makes me happy to know, Oli, that you are quite educated in the mighty ussr of ww2.
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Charles Vane
- Posts: 13
- Joined: 23 Nov 2014, 21:01
Re: Myths of American armor.
US considered the German soldiers to be 20-30% better and more effective.
Brits Considered them to be 30% better than US soldiers and 20% than their own
http://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Power-Ge ... op?ie=UTF8
good book btw.
tank battailions 400-500%
Tiger K/D on average 4-1 but probably even higher since every german tank was a Tiger or a Panther (thats also why the US considered them to be 400% better)
@warhawks: I kinda disaggree on the 3:2 quantity for attacking since there are more Options... surprise attack? vs what Kind of fortification? is the defensive Position equipted with much MGs? or is it an average value?
early war on Ussr soil the Germans attacked in large force thats true but also attacks in lower numbers like 1:1 or even 90% of what the russian defenders had were successful like when the attackers had more MGs in their ranks or the russians had just like non... just saying that it is more complicated especially on the eastern front from 41-45 as also Russian quaility improved during the war.
oh btw:
"Sloping of armor (...) this means that the Sherman has almost as much frontal armor as the Tiger does, this is not bad! The difference was the gun, the TIger's gun was much better than the Sherman's (...) But not everything was a Tiger, the 50mm the 75mm, they would bounce off a Sherman more often than not."
this is very unlikely since he appearantly does not take overmatching into account. well non the less I'm more a fan of Doyles books.
Brits Considered them to be 30% better than US soldiers and 20% than their own
http://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Power-Ge ... op?ie=UTF8
good book btw.
tank battailions 400-500%
Tiger K/D on average 4-1 but probably even higher since every german tank was a Tiger or a Panther (thats also why the US considered them to be 400% better)
@warhawks: I kinda disaggree on the 3:2 quantity for attacking since there are more Options... surprise attack? vs what Kind of fortification? is the defensive Position equipted with much MGs? or is it an average value?
early war on Ussr soil the Germans attacked in large force thats true but also attacks in lower numbers like 1:1 or even 90% of what the russian defenders had were successful like when the attackers had more MGs in their ranks or the russians had just like non... just saying that it is more complicated especially on the eastern front from 41-45 as also Russian quaility improved during the war.
oh btw:
"Sloping of armor (...) this means that the Sherman has almost as much frontal armor as the Tiger does, this is not bad! The difference was the gun, the TIger's gun was much better than the Sherman's (...) But not everything was a Tiger, the 50mm the 75mm, they would bounce off a Sherman more often than not."
this is very unlikely since he appearantly does not take overmatching into account. well non the less I'm more a fan of Doyles books.
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Warhawks97
- Posts: 5395
- Joined: 23 Nov 2014, 21:45
- Location: Germany
Re: Myths of American armor.
On eastern front the germans had always higher better K/D. During offense and defense.
But what made them "more effective". I know that 20-30% thing but that was NOT achieved by being super humans. It had been their new tactic, use of special forces (NOT running frontally into MG), reworked squad tactics (reyling a lot more on the LMG while rifle men did manevers or supported fire during defense fights) while all other forces relied more on the riflemen itself to make kills which was bad since in ww2 many soldiers concentrated either more to make the maneuvers or they were simply unable to make a shot due to tanks/arty etc. So axis rethought simply their tactics and stratgies in everything: Tank, air, inf, support weapons and result was the Blitzkrieg used till nowdays. But they had never been "More healthy" or anyhting like that or "super humans" or "more deadly bullets".
A German figther ace also mentioned once, that brits had been on same level with german pilots. The Russians had been worse but many and axis could keep only a few airplanes in the air at the same time. The US simply came in numbers so that it was hard to figure out who has the better pilots in average (sure, axis had lots of awesome aces).
As for armor they had been effective due to new way of using them + using radios. Later they often fought in defense ambushing enemie tanks from huge range. Just in BK we either dont have the realistic maintanance, res income, or anyhting. On western front in 44 the ammount of lost tanks had been similiar. Just most axis ran out of fuel etc. During offense axis could be stopped as well by using 17 pdr or flank shots against Panthers. So to knock out a Panther it was a 3:1 ratio. Sure a panther from defense knocked out like 5 shermans maybe, but the other got knocked out by flank shot from an ambush without making a kill even. So one panther in defense took out 5, the others in offense 0 so it was 5 shermans and 2 panthers down. Thats how i understood that ratio.
But ratio isnt all if you cant take an advantage of the kills you do. Either because the super tanks couldnt move anymore, need maintanance or an attack would have instantly ended in an encirclment.
Axis also did need a 3:2 superiority to make an effective offense with chance to win. Allis a 2:1 (or 4:2 if you want^^) to make an effective offense. So it was not anymore that axis could attack with less numbers, maybe in some occassions but generally 3:2 so that the attack could achive an effective strategic and tactically impact.
he maybe forgot that overmatching factor but it doesnt apply always. That way every stubby Tank IV would have been able to kill shermans in north africa, but it didnt.
Also old devs in BK made mistake with Tank IV. It was overboosted and far better as Hetzer/stug/pak40 in pen and also damage and no realism could explain that. As sample the tank IV penetrated sherman at max range with 95% chance, the hetzer just with 70%. As we consider max range as 1400-1500 meters it makes sense to bounce from slopped sherman armor from time to time.
Also the Jacks was penetrating wiht just 60% chance a Tank IV H/J at max range. This is what annoyed players. Simply that this "quality" thing applied to all german units, regardless if realistic or not, necessary or not.
But generally nice to see you back here in forum. But as you can probably see we still have the SP in game:(
But what made them "more effective". I know that 20-30% thing but that was NOT achieved by being super humans. It had been their new tactic, use of special forces (NOT running frontally into MG), reworked squad tactics (reyling a lot more on the LMG while rifle men did manevers or supported fire during defense fights) while all other forces relied more on the riflemen itself to make kills which was bad since in ww2 many soldiers concentrated either more to make the maneuvers or they were simply unable to make a shot due to tanks/arty etc. So axis rethought simply their tactics and stratgies in everything: Tank, air, inf, support weapons and result was the Blitzkrieg used till nowdays. But they had never been "More healthy" or anyhting like that or "super humans" or "more deadly bullets".
A German figther ace also mentioned once, that brits had been on same level with german pilots. The Russians had been worse but many and axis could keep only a few airplanes in the air at the same time. The US simply came in numbers so that it was hard to figure out who has the better pilots in average (sure, axis had lots of awesome aces).
As for armor they had been effective due to new way of using them + using radios. Later they often fought in defense ambushing enemie tanks from huge range. Just in BK we either dont have the realistic maintanance, res income, or anyhting. On western front in 44 the ammount of lost tanks had been similiar. Just most axis ran out of fuel etc. During offense axis could be stopped as well by using 17 pdr or flank shots against Panthers. So to knock out a Panther it was a 3:1 ratio. Sure a panther from defense knocked out like 5 shermans maybe, but the other got knocked out by flank shot from an ambush without making a kill even. So one panther in defense took out 5, the others in offense 0 so it was 5 shermans and 2 panthers down. Thats how i understood that ratio.
But ratio isnt all if you cant take an advantage of the kills you do. Either because the super tanks couldnt move anymore, need maintanance or an attack would have instantly ended in an encirclment.
Axis also did need a 3:2 superiority to make an effective offense with chance to win. Allis a 2:1 (or 4:2 if you want^^) to make an effective offense. So it was not anymore that axis could attack with less numbers, maybe in some occassions but generally 3:2 so that the attack could achive an effective strategic and tactically impact.
he maybe forgot that overmatching factor but it doesnt apply always. That way every stubby Tank IV would have been able to kill shermans in north africa, but it didnt.
Also old devs in BK made mistake with Tank IV. It was overboosted and far better as Hetzer/stug/pak40 in pen and also damage and no realism could explain that. As sample the tank IV penetrated sherman at max range with 95% chance, the hetzer just with 70%. As we consider max range as 1400-1500 meters it makes sense to bounce from slopped sherman armor from time to time.
Also the Jacks was penetrating wiht just 60% chance a Tank IV H/J at max range. This is what annoyed players. Simply that this "quality" thing applied to all german units, regardless if realistic or not, necessary or not.
But generally nice to see you back here in forum. But as you can probably see we still have the SP in game:(
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Charles Vane
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Re: Myths of American armor.
I did not mention super human but even in the end of war the german infantry Training was still better. during the BotB the US was short on Manpower too so they had to cut down the infantry Training and it was shortened from 3 months to 1. even in Germany soldiers usually had been trained longer so the Basic knowlege of the soldier what he has to do was still higher + that often officers and squad leaders had experience and usually knew what they had to do.
if the soldiers are more healthy ingame or just aim better doesn't really matter imo. sure I would have done it a bit different but now changing a finished product because some People checked the values and don't like HOW it was balanced? in th end it really doesn't matter AS Long as it IS balanced.
about the Penetration. ye seem right on some edges why the 90mm has less than a panzer IV on Long range is something I cannot understand but I can understand why the 8,8 has more than the 90 on Long range. I think they wanted to make the difference between german und US ammo pretty obvious -> US has high pen on short range with higher velocity drop while Germans still have good values on range.
I don't Play active anymore I just saw that Topic and wanted to discuss a bit again. got my own Project
edit about overmatching: nope not always the Penetration still has to be high enough to penetrate the armor itself so a stubby won't make it but a L43 or L48 can do it even on Long ranges.
if the soldiers are more healthy ingame or just aim better doesn't really matter imo. sure I would have done it a bit different but now changing a finished product because some People checked the values and don't like HOW it was balanced? in th end it really doesn't matter AS Long as it IS balanced.
about the Penetration. ye seem right on some edges why the 90mm has less than a panzer IV on Long range is something I cannot understand but I can understand why the 8,8 has more than the 90 on Long range. I think they wanted to make the difference between german und US ammo pretty obvious -> US has high pen on short range with higher velocity drop while Germans still have good values on range.
I don't Play active anymore I just saw that Topic and wanted to discuss a bit again. got my own Project
edit about overmatching: nope not always the Penetration still has to be high enough to penetrate the armor itself so a stubby won't make it but a L43 or L48 can do it even on Long ranges.
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Warhawks97
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- Joined: 23 Nov 2014, 21:45
- Location: Germany
Re: Myths of American armor.
The better training can be represented by accuracy, rof reload times and here axis had been better already. More healthy and more deadly bullets do not belong to it. And not the values seemd of in first place. The experience made it first, values just confirmed experiences from many players.
But btw i heard that M1 in spearhead is deadly till 40 range (if not best rifle till that game). In Bk range classifications are broken. Means long range is mid range (0-35 was short,mid,long) while distant was the only real long range (35-60). The M1 couldnt hit shit beyond US nade range and also rof was or still is lower as K98 rof. from 25-60 range k98 fires faster.
About the pen drop. The pen drop of shells had been pretty equal (loss in percentage). Just the chances to pen an axis tank did drop significantly at ranges. So when checking the pure ammount of penetration drop then both sides guns of comparable characteristics had been equal, just at a certain range allis couldnt pen anymore. That still doesnt mean that the 76 gun has just like 50% pen chance vs tank IV´s on mid range. In fact even on point blank then 76 gun had only a 72% pen chance vs tank IV H/J with skirts (point blank for US standard US tanks is 0-10, for axis 0-15. So for US they fired only from 5-10 range at point blank and still had high chance to bounce from Tank IV´s and thats what happend to me even. Thats what is/was looking really off and which couldnt be explained by "quality" or anything. I think not even in spearhead mod it is working that way, or?:P
But btw i heard that M1 in spearhead is deadly till 40 range (if not best rifle till that game). In Bk range classifications are broken. Means long range is mid range (0-35 was short,mid,long) while distant was the only real long range (35-60). The M1 couldnt hit shit beyond US nade range and also rof was or still is lower as K98 rof. from 25-60 range k98 fires faster.
About the pen drop. The pen drop of shells had been pretty equal (loss in percentage). Just the chances to pen an axis tank did drop significantly at ranges. So when checking the pure ammount of penetration drop then both sides guns of comparable characteristics had been equal, just at a certain range allis couldnt pen anymore. That still doesnt mean that the 76 gun has just like 50% pen chance vs tank IV´s on mid range. In fact even on point blank then 76 gun had only a 72% pen chance vs tank IV H/J with skirts (point blank for US standard US tanks is 0-10, for axis 0-15. So for US they fired only from 5-10 range at point blank and still had high chance to bounce from Tank IV´s and thats what happend to me even. Thats what is/was looking really off and which couldnt be explained by "quality" or anything. I think not even in spearhead mod it is working that way, or?:P
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Re: Myths of American armor.
Sorry to rain on your overmatching parade, Charles. But I have here the penetration tables of the guns, and as it stands, the 50mm guns could not hope to penetrate a Sherman frontally except with very rare/late war ammo, and the 75mm guns only had assured penetration at 100m, anything beyond 500m was an iffy shot except, again with rare/late war ammo.
Overmatching can only help you so far in deforming the armor so that the shell pens, but it doesn't technically improve the number of mm penetrated. It did help when taking spalling into account, but as Nicholas Moran points in the video too, US sherman crews wore protection, meaning they were slightly less prone to death by spalling.
Remember, as thin as the Sherman armor is (51mm), the effective armor the shells needed to penetrate was still of up to (roughly) 91mm of armor, angling the tank could add even 15 to 20 mm more of armor protection if done correctly. And that's for the early model Shermans, later Shermans would have relatively better armor too. So yeah, "(...) The 50s, the 75s, they would bounce off a Sherman more often than not."
(I'm not gonna lie, I like my Shermans and have... recently... researched them a bit.)
In unrelated comments, nice to meet you.
Overmatching can only help you so far in deforming the armor so that the shell pens, but it doesn't technically improve the number of mm penetrated. It did help when taking spalling into account, but as Nicholas Moran points in the video too, US sherman crews wore protection, meaning they were slightly less prone to death by spalling.
Remember, as thin as the Sherman armor is (51mm), the effective armor the shells needed to penetrate was still of up to (roughly) 91mm of armor, angling the tank could add even 15 to 20 mm more of armor protection if done correctly. And that's for the early model Shermans, later Shermans would have relatively better armor too. So yeah, "(...) The 50s, the 75s, they would bounce off a Sherman more often than not."
(I'm not gonna lie, I like my Shermans and have... recently... researched them a bit.)
In unrelated comments, nice to meet you.
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Charles Vane
- Posts: 13
- Joined: 23 Nov 2014, 21:01
Re: Myths of American armor.
garand and K98 are even in spearhead but atm the garand sucks big times on Long range due a typo... will be fixed in future.
I had a table of the Penetration loss between 8,8 L56 and 90mm M3 and the german L70 Version of 75mm gun and the Penetration loss they had. US are clearly disadvantaged on those ranges not to mention the optics on the German tanks which made shots on Long range more accurate. I think those are still the factors they wanted to make obvious for a game.
as said they just have it a bit over the top but I guess you get my Point. in spearhead I made them myself a bit more similar and on Long range (50? - 70) the german guns are slightly better but US are most of time more powerful on short ranges.
@armacalic the Penetration of the 51mm plate of a sherman is thin enough to be penetrated by the L60 up to ~600 metres with "Basic" ammo. overmatching starts working as soon as the Shell penetrates the hull (which is the case of the 51mm plate up to 600 metres) everything above is a "bounce".
100 m 500 m 1000 m 1500 m 2000 m
67 mm 57 mm 44 mm 34 mm
pzgr 39
100 m 500 m 1000 m 1500 m 2000 m
69 mm 59 mm 48 mm 37 mm
about the 75mm PAK. unlikley that it has Problems on 500 metres. it was effective up to 1km. otherwise prove me wrong.
+ most tanks in France got wasted by 75mm AT guns and no it was not only suburban fight or short range fights. thats a myth.
another tank is the Tiger which was used angled by tank commanders but agling didn't work out against bigger russian calibres like the 122mm IS2 gun even when the effective armor was angled and reached lets say 140mm effective armor the Shell would pen on ranges when it would just reach 120mm Penetration.
in case you still don't believe what I guess is that fact: read the book German Equipment vs US Equipment (or kinda like this)
written by Isaac D White. also Doyles Panzer IV book pretty much gives an Exempel of what I meant.
I had a table of the Penetration loss between 8,8 L56 and 90mm M3 and the german L70 Version of 75mm gun and the Penetration loss they had. US are clearly disadvantaged on those ranges not to mention the optics on the German tanks which made shots on Long range more accurate. I think those are still the factors they wanted to make obvious for a game.
as said they just have it a bit over the top but I guess you get my Point. in spearhead I made them myself a bit more similar and on Long range (50? - 70) the german guns are slightly better but US are most of time more powerful on short ranges.
@armacalic the Penetration of the 51mm plate of a sherman is thin enough to be penetrated by the L60 up to ~600 metres with "Basic" ammo. overmatching starts working as soon as the Shell penetrates the hull (which is the case of the 51mm plate up to 600 metres) everything above is a "bounce".
100 m 500 m 1000 m 1500 m 2000 m
67 mm 57 mm 44 mm 34 mm
pzgr 39
100 m 500 m 1000 m 1500 m 2000 m
69 mm 59 mm 48 mm 37 mm
about the 75mm PAK. unlikley that it has Problems on 500 metres. it was effective up to 1km. otherwise prove me wrong.
+ most tanks in France got wasted by 75mm AT guns and no it was not only suburban fight or short range fights. thats a myth.
another tank is the Tiger which was used angled by tank commanders but agling didn't work out against bigger russian calibres like the 122mm IS2 gun even when the effective armor was angled and reached lets say 140mm effective armor the Shell would pen on ranges when it would just reach 120mm Penetration.
in case you still don't believe what I guess is that fact: read the book German Equipment vs US Equipment (or kinda like this)
written by Isaac D White. also Doyles Panzer IV book pretty much gives an Exempel of what I meant.
Re: Myths of American armor.
I'm not trying to discredit overmatching and what it does here, but you are also putting too much faith into it.
If overmatching worked all the time, the practice of sloping armor would have died in World War II; overmatching is basically the chance that armor will fail catastrophically the moment it's hit by a shell that's wider than the armor is thick. This event did not happen all the time, but it could happen even if the shell DID NOT penetrate the armor, deforming a large section of armor and creating large amounts of spalling. It could also simply crack the armor, making it a lot easier to penetrate next time it was hit, or it could simply cause the armor to give in and let the shell penetrate more easily.
The most common of the 3 effects mentioned above was armor cracking, which softened a tank's armor more than usual compared to shells that did not cause overmatching (For example, a Sherman 75mm could hope to penetrate the Tiger's frontal armor if it kept hitting the same spot for a while.).
I'm not saying overmatching did not happen, it certainly did, but it was not nearly as common as you seem to believe. Giving credit to your 75mm antitank gun argument, the gun would more than likely bounce a Sherman at up to 500m, but subsequent shells were more liable to penetrate, when a tank's charging at an anti tank gun, the defending anti tank gun had chances to land more than one hit on the same target and penetrate after the armor was softened.
If overmatching worked all the time, the practice of sloping armor would have died in World War II; overmatching is basically the chance that armor will fail catastrophically the moment it's hit by a shell that's wider than the armor is thick. This event did not happen all the time, but it could happen even if the shell DID NOT penetrate the armor, deforming a large section of armor and creating large amounts of spalling. It could also simply crack the armor, making it a lot easier to penetrate next time it was hit, or it could simply cause the armor to give in and let the shell penetrate more easily.
The most common of the 3 effects mentioned above was armor cracking, which softened a tank's armor more than usual compared to shells that did not cause overmatching (For example, a Sherman 75mm could hope to penetrate the Tiger's frontal armor if it kept hitting the same spot for a while.).
I'm not saying overmatching did not happen, it certainly did, but it was not nearly as common as you seem to believe. Giving credit to your 75mm antitank gun argument, the gun would more than likely bounce a Sherman at up to 500m, but subsequent shells were more liable to penetrate, when a tank's charging at an anti tank gun, the defending anti tank gun had chances to land more than one hit on the same target and penetrate after the armor was softened.
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Charles Vane
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Re: Myths of American armor.
I will send you another source of overmatching later because I know the WoT Topic on it and also know that there are differences to other sites.
I think you underestimate (or overestimate) the Pak 40 (or shermans armor) the Shells you mention are the Pzgr 40. in 44 especially on the Western Front it was pretty rare for 1 simple reason: it was not needed. 80% of the production went to the Eastern front.
sloped armor died more or less after the war. look at the Leopard 2a6 or Abrams. spaced armor or massive armor replaced it. after the war the sloped parts where often just a tiny bit thicker than the Shells to avoid overmatching (US used 90mm After the war. Russians build 100mm armor on T54, US deployed 105mm, armor was improved to 120mm and so on) so yes there are pretty good chances and as said angle or not 51mm are not that hard to pen for the L43 or L48. there is a reason the US uparmored the tanks to 63mm (even there Penetration was quite common by L43 models)
I think you underestimate (or overestimate) the Pak 40 (or shermans armor) the Shells you mention are the Pzgr 40. in 44 especially on the Western Front it was pretty rare for 1 simple reason: it was not needed. 80% of the production went to the Eastern front.
sloped armor died more or less after the war. look at the Leopard 2a6 or Abrams. spaced armor or massive armor replaced it. after the war the sloped parts where often just a tiny bit thicker than the Shells to avoid overmatching (US used 90mm After the war. Russians build 100mm armor on T54, US deployed 105mm, armor was improved to 120mm and so on) so yes there are pretty good chances and as said angle or not 51mm are not that hard to pen for the L43 or L48. there is a reason the US uparmored the tanks to 63mm (even there Penetration was quite common by L43 models)
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Warhawks97
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- Location: Germany
Re: Myths of American armor.
The Pzgr 40 was later mainly issued to german tank destroyer. For Panthers Pz.gr 40 got withdrawn in autumn 43 already (yes, 43) and for Tigers actually same. Ive had a table showing issued Pzgr 40 to tigers, used and ammount of withdrawn. The Jagdpanzer IV/48 used on western front had 50% Pz.gr 40 and 50% normal AP rounds. For paks i am not sure but for 50 mm the pzgr 40 got withdrawn in 42/43. The wolfram got recyled and iirc mainly issued to 75 mm L/48 guns to give them higher chance to pen 1944 armor. Panther penetrated everything anyway and the lifespawn of the barrel was only 10.000 shots using normal PzGr39 (early tank IV´s like 100.000 shots life spawn) and with pzgr 40 only 2000 shots.
The Tiger was also capable to knock out most tanks of its time so again no need to provide PzGr 40 anymore. Also it got gradually replaced by L/71 version which again killed pretty much everything.
So most Pzgr 40 went to 75 mm L/48 guns to maintain their efficency vs tanks in 44.
The Tiger was also capable to knock out most tanks of its time so again no need to provide PzGr 40 anymore. Also it got gradually replaced by L/71 version which again killed pretty much everything.
So most Pzgr 40 went to 75 mm L/48 guns to maintain their efficency vs tanks in 44.
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Re: Myths of American armor.
Charles Vane wrote:sloped armor died more or less after the war. look at the Leopard 2a6 or Abrams.
Excuse me while I gawk at all the modern sloped and rounded armor.
You're still putting TOO much faith in overmatching, it was NOT an extremely common ocurrance, you are missing the point by focusing only on one type of ammo. Penetration on first hit was hard to achieve against the Shermans' front for 75mm german anti tank guns at ranges of over 500m except for very few specific types of ammo, but the size and weight of most of the 75mm shells could pretty quickly render the armor too weak to stop subsequent shots, that's simply how it was. The Sherman was simply not the armored coffin you think it was.
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Charles Vane
- Posts: 13
- Joined: 23 Nov 2014, 21:01
Re: Myths of American armor.
you put too much faith into your sherman
51mm is nothing for the Pak 40. still waiting for a prove. the values speak for itself.
saying a gun with 80+mm pen on 500 metres has more bouncers on 51mm than pen hits is like saying the Tiger is immune to 90mm Shells.
Penetration at 30 degrees from vertical
100 500 1000 1500
PzGr. 39 108 mm 96 mm 80 mm 64 mm
PzGr. 40 143 mm 120 mm 97 mm 77 mm
PzGr. 38 HL/B 75 mm 75 mm 75 mm 75 mm
and from 90° on 500m
Armour piercing 792 m/s 132 mm
APCR 933 m/s 154 mm
HE 550 m/s n/a
the Later one with ~63mm are effective ~93mm
for the older Version its less
I could now also start on what Kind of steel was used during the Tests for the panzergranate and what Kind of steel the Shell had to fight in combat.
"The Jagdpanzer IV/48 used on western front had 50% Pz.gr 40 and 50% normal AP rounds."
I highly doubt that it was 50:50. in best cases 70:30 (39:40) if you got very lucky. usually just a few single rounds were issued even to tank hunters.
saying that the Pak 40 was useless beyond 500m is something you have to prove because it is very very unlikely and beyond realistic values.
tbh this sounds like the US Version of a Tiger Fanboy and this discussion starts lacking objectivity.
edit: argh you know that armor is today different from what it was in the 40s right? look at the Abrams turret, look at its hull. and then educate yourself about the Leopard turret what is in the end a A4 turret with just a think plate covering it up and sucking up the Shell before it hits real armor. as said today you don't Need sloped armor as much as in the 40s.
you do know that the hull is today often a weakspot on older models and on newer the sloped armor works for the stated reasons... thicker than the "enemies" calibre. most of the time 140mm+ not to mention that it is "mix armor" the Kind of sloped armor from WWII died (look at post war models, M60s hull, M48s hull,) and then again on the russian answers like T54. 80mm hull got penetrated by the 90mm gun. so it was improved to 100 hull. 105mm gun was deployed and penetrated again. 120mm hull was deployed. then T64 arrived with "mixed armor" and thats where we cannot directly compare anymore.
Doyle btw commented on a nice Test Firing Range in 1946 when they used real WWII ammo, real WWII armor, real WWII guns. they used a 85mm Panther hull as target and used a 17pdr from a as "short" described range. the gun didn't penetrate as often as a 90mm from a "far greater" distance where the Penetration loss was higher but due overmatching the results were better.
about modern MBTs, often tanks just use sloped design in hull for weight reduction btw check on the Abrams you will see it works without just fine. Leopard 2A4 turret is old but still a nasty Piece of metal as you see it is basically the A6 turret just covered with a "thin" metal plate that eats all the Penetration from HEAT and KE Shells.
I recommend reading the books I've posted above because they go a bit deeper than 95% of the Internet "knowlege"
51mm is nothing for the Pak 40. still waiting for a prove. the values speak for itself.
saying a gun with 80+mm pen on 500 metres has more bouncers on 51mm than pen hits is like saying the Tiger is immune to 90mm Shells.
Penetration at 30 degrees from vertical
100 500 1000 1500
PzGr. 39 108 mm 96 mm 80 mm 64 mm
PzGr. 40 143 mm 120 mm 97 mm 77 mm
PzGr. 38 HL/B 75 mm 75 mm 75 mm 75 mm
and from 90° on 500m
Armour piercing 792 m/s 132 mm
APCR 933 m/s 154 mm
HE 550 m/s n/a
the Later one with ~63mm are effective ~93mm
for the older Version its less
I could now also start on what Kind of steel was used during the Tests for the panzergranate and what Kind of steel the Shell had to fight in combat.
"The Jagdpanzer IV/48 used on western front had 50% Pz.gr 40 and 50% normal AP rounds."
I highly doubt that it was 50:50. in best cases 70:30 (39:40) if you got very lucky. usually just a few single rounds were issued even to tank hunters.
saying that the Pak 40 was useless beyond 500m is something you have to prove because it is very very unlikely and beyond realistic values.
tbh this sounds like the US Version of a Tiger Fanboy and this discussion starts lacking objectivity.
edit: argh you know that armor is today different from what it was in the 40s right? look at the Abrams turret, look at its hull. and then educate yourself about the Leopard turret what is in the end a A4 turret with just a think plate covering it up and sucking up the Shell before it hits real armor. as said today you don't Need sloped armor as much as in the 40s.
you do know that the hull is today often a weakspot on older models and on newer the sloped armor works for the stated reasons... thicker than the "enemies" calibre. most of the time 140mm+ not to mention that it is "mix armor" the Kind of sloped armor from WWII died (look at post war models, M60s hull, M48s hull,) and then again on the russian answers like T54. 80mm hull got penetrated by the 90mm gun. so it was improved to 100 hull. 105mm gun was deployed and penetrated again. 120mm hull was deployed. then T64 arrived with "mixed armor" and thats where we cannot directly compare anymore.
Doyle btw commented on a nice Test Firing Range in 1946 when they used real WWII ammo, real WWII armor, real WWII guns. they used a 85mm Panther hull as target and used a 17pdr from a as "short" described range. the gun didn't penetrate as often as a 90mm from a "far greater" distance where the Penetration loss was higher but due overmatching the results were better.
about modern MBTs, often tanks just use sloped design in hull for weight reduction btw check on the Abrams you will see it works without just fine. Leopard 2A4 turret is old but still a nasty Piece of metal as you see it is basically the A6 turret just covered with a "thin" metal plate that eats all the Penetration from HEAT and KE Shells.
I recommend reading the books I've posted above because they go a bit deeper than 95% of the Internet "knowlege"
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Warhawks97
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Re: Myths of American armor.
When Pzgr 40 for Panther and tiger guns got withdrawn in order not to greatly reduce their lifespawns and since their guns could penetrate everything and APCR rounds only produced fo the 75 L/48 rounds then its possible. Esspecially since only arround 760 IV/48 had been produced then its possible that those carried 50:50. I dunno about hetzer or tank IV etc. But since in 44 axis build (and maybe even deployed) more panthers than Tank IV´s then its not that unrealistic. Besides that paks could often wait untill final moment as they are hard to spott. So its not unliekly that 75 mm pak crews did wait untill they were sure to make a perfect shot. The closer the better as long as your are still hidden. Opening fire on 1 km risking to bounce and fail shot and to reveal the position is very unlikely. Artillery and mortar would quickly kill your position and you have killed maybe a single tank.
So even if a pen shot could have achieved from greater distance its better to wait to increase the chance to kill. And i think that german pak crews 8and all pak crews) did so. Shooting from large range did happen when a fight was already going on and when paks were already under fire etc. But under that circumstances in the heat of the battle they fired simply as many rounds as possible on targets untill a pen shot is achieved. But nobody is then counting how many shells did pen/bounced.
But lets talk about another weapon and Tank in BK. The 76 guns had only like 40% pen chance vs tank IV´s on max range and even on middle ranges just like 50%. If the 76 would have performed so bad against Tank IV´s or Tank IV so good, i wonder why only the Panther created so many headaches to US that they did liked 3 shooting tests alone during france campgain agaonst panther tanks but not against Tank IV´s. They did speak about the Panther crisis in summer 44 but not about a Tank IV crisis or anything. But if 76 would have performed so poor vs Tank IV´s like it does/did in bk then they would have made just as many tests against tank IV´s as against Panthers. Or at least as detailed tests as against Panthers using all types of guns and shells they had and writting the result extremly detailed down on paper.
So as true or untrue the 75 mm efficency vs shermans is, i would be curious whether its realistic or not that 76 guns do bounce from tank IV´s at middle distances with a frequency of like 50%.
So even if a pen shot could have achieved from greater distance its better to wait to increase the chance to kill. And i think that german pak crews 8and all pak crews) did so. Shooting from large range did happen when a fight was already going on and when paks were already under fire etc. But under that circumstances in the heat of the battle they fired simply as many rounds as possible on targets untill a pen shot is achieved. But nobody is then counting how many shells did pen/bounced.
But lets talk about another weapon and Tank in BK. The 76 guns had only like 40% pen chance vs tank IV´s on max range and even on middle ranges just like 50%. If the 76 would have performed so bad against Tank IV´s or Tank IV so good, i wonder why only the Panther created so many headaches to US that they did liked 3 shooting tests alone during france campgain agaonst panther tanks but not against Tank IV´s. They did speak about the Panther crisis in summer 44 but not about a Tank IV crisis or anything. But if 76 would have performed so poor vs Tank IV´s like it does/did in bk then they would have made just as many tests against tank IV´s as against Panthers. Or at least as detailed tests as against Panthers using all types of guns and shells they had and writting the result extremly detailed down on paper.
So as true or untrue the 75 mm efficency vs shermans is, i would be curious whether its realistic or not that 76 guns do bounce from tank IV´s at middle distances with a frequency of like 50%.
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Re: Myths of American armor.
Charles Vane wrote:you put too much faith into your sherman
51mm is nothing for the Pak 40. still waiting for a prove. the values speak for itself.
The values? So you're meaning to tell me that the sloping of armor on the tank that basically meant it had 90-95mm of effective armor means NOTHING? Angling turns that number into 110-115mm of armor even.
Sorry, I'm really suspecting someone here puts WAY too much faith in overmatching. And it's obviously not me, seeing as I'm not the one pushing for overmatching happening 100% of the time in battle, because it simply did not.
You don't need to prove it exists, I know it does, I know it happened some times. However, it didn't happen often, it was rare for it to happen to the US tanks, compared to German tanks vs Russian guns.
As well, you're only focusing on the best types of ammo that, as you said, were somewhat rare. 75mm anti tank guns wouldn't have their best possible penetrating rounds 100% of the time. More over, if you think about the shells, in the long run, the PzGr40 was technically the worst type of shell for the job, it had no HE filler, it was a completely solid shell relying solely on kinetic energy to cause damage, APCR as it were, with a smaller and denser core that was meant to use only in desperation if nothing else that would be more effective on penetration could penetrate. Bravo, you're relying on needles that may or may not cause enough spalling inside the enemy tank and that will not explode to cause fragmentation that would knock out the crew more easily, and that has probably enough penetration at the shorter ranges that it would pass clean through the tank, unable to bounce inside.
Better penetration doesn't automatically guarantee a tank kill, mate. As for the other shells, they, again, don't have enough penetration over 500m to kill a Sherman 100% of the time, at least not on a first hit, because no, it's not ONLY 51mm, it's a 51mm with sloping of about 45-50 degrees, turning that number into anything between 85mm to 95mm armor effective.
Charles Vane wrote: edit: argh you know that armor is today different from what it was in the 40s right? look at the Abrams turret, look at its hull. and then educate yourself about the Leopard turret what is in the end a A4 turret with just a think plate covering it up and sucking up the Shell before it hits real armor. as said today you don't Need sloped armor as much as in the 40s.
you do know that the hull is today often a weakspot on older models and on newer the sloped armor works for the stated reasons... thicker than the "enemies" calibre. most of the time 140mm+ not to mention that it is "mix armor" the Kind of sloped armor from WWII died (look at post war models, M60s hull, M48s hull,) and then again on the russian answers like T54. 80mm hull got penetrated by the 90mm gun. so it was improved to 100 hull. 105mm gun was deployed and penetrated again. 120mm hull was deployed. then T64 arrived with "mixed armor" and thats where we cannot directly compare anymore.
Doyle btw commented on a nice Test Firing Range in 1946 when they used real WWII ammo, real WWII armor, real WWII guns. they used a 85mm Panther hull as target and used a 17pdr from a as "short" described range. the gun didn't penetrate as often as a 90mm from a "far greater" distance where the Penetration loss was higher but due overmatching the results were better.
about modern MBTs, often tanks just use sloped design in hull for weight reduction btw check on the Abrams you will see it works without just fine. Leopard 2A4 turret is old but still a nasty Piece of metal as you see it is basically the A6 turret just covered with a "thin" metal plate that eats all the Penetration from HEAT and KE Shells.
I recommend reading the books I've posted above because they go a bit deeper than 95% of the Internet "knowlege"
No, my good man, sloping of armor is still there to defeat kinetic rounds, because armor alone is not going to cut it. Whatever other form of armor a tank has strapped on is NOT designed to stop kinetic based attacks, but shaped-charge attacks, like HEAT (A.K.A. BASICALLY ALL THE CURRENT HAND HELD AT WEAPONRY + HEAT based shells, which became predominant because of their ludicrous amount of penetration potential they could pack.) Spaced Armor, ERA (and all its derivates.), caged armor, and everything strapped onto a tank that's not directly the tank's armor is meant to fight HEAT off.
I know it's a simplification, but on the greater whole, this is the truth.