Tanks??

[phylo_roadking]

Not even one equiped with nice reconditioned S35s?

[Tim Smith]

The KV1 had a lot of problems which were never satifactorily resolved

To give the Soviets credit, the KV-1 was an absolutely fantastic heavy tank when compared to the Soviet alternatives, the T-100 and the SMK - which were multi-turreted vehicles like the T-35, but with heavier armour.

http://www.airlandseaweapons.com/blog/6 ... vy-tank-1/

[nebelwerferXXX]

1. If Germany would have its Tiger II tanks mass produced by 1939. How many do you think would have been built?

2. If 1,000 Tiger II tanks would face 1,000 Shermans. How would win?

3. Would 1,000 Tiger II tanks have done anything at D-day (against the allied tanks)

Here's my opinion:

1) Historically there were 485 Tiger II tanks that were completed during the war, but in the Invasion of Poland in 1939, the German blitzkrieg started with 98 Panzer III tanks, 211 Panzer IV tanks, 1,445 Panzer I tanks and 1,223 Panzer II tanks in seven panzer and four light divisions.

2) Not 1,000 Sherman tanks but instead 1,500 allied tanks. 5,000 half-tracks. 3,000 guns and 10,500 vehicles against 1,000 Tiger II tanks? The Allies have assembled a combined-arms forces during the first 24 hours.

3) There were seven battleships, 23 cruisers and 148 destroyers for the naval effort and more than 3,000 bombers as air support against the 1,000 Tiger II tanks.

sources:
1) German Weapons of World War II
2) and 3) D-Day: Invasion of Hitler's Europe

[BDV]

Not even one [panzerdivision] equiped with nice reconditioned S35s?

Why would Germans do that, when the S35s were obviously pining for the fjords? Good thing the Reich expedited about half of Fallschirmjager, airlift, and Kriegsmarine ensuring a nice home for these orphans. And to think some have the gall to accuse Nazis of heartlessness.

And the remaining fresh-out-of-factory S35s can be returned to the French. I mean, they need some tanks if they are to battle AfrikaKorps in Tunisia, don't they?

[Dave Bender]

KV-1 was an absolutely fantastic heavy tank when compared to the Soviet alternatives

What's wrong with the alternative of building 25 ton tanks until you aquire the expertise to build heavier armored vehicles that are mechanically reliable?

[BDV]

What's wrong with the alternative of building 25 ton tanks until you aquire the expertise to build heavier armored vehicles that are mechanically reliable?

Cuts both ways.

When you need to go to a heavy caliber gun and only a 45 ton tank will do, it's nice to have the expertise and productive capacity in place, rather than go through the learning process all over again... And it's not like RKKA didn't have its share of 14 tonners. Discombolulating the enemy, throwing him off his sensible plan of upgrading to 35 ton tanks helps too...

[Tim Smith]

KV-1 was an absolutely fantastic heavy tank when compared to the Soviet alternatives

What's wrong with the alternative of building 25 ton tanks until you aquire the expertise to build heavier armored vehicles that are mechanically reliable?

If you don't build heavy tanks, you can't learn how to make reliable heavy tanks. Q.E.D.

Anyway, the KV-1 was just as reliable as the Tiger I - i.e. not very reliable, when compared to the T-34 and Panzer III.

[Dave Bender]

Everything I have read suggests that isn't true. At least not for early model KV1s. For that matter, T34s and other Soviet tanks produced prior to 1943 or so weren't terribly reliable either. An inevitable result of Stalin murdering so many engineers and factory managers during the mid to late 1930s. Steven Zaloga estimated that 44% of the Soviet tank force required rebuilding during 1941.

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/panzerkamp ... ervice.htm
Unreliability goes a long way towards explaining how the Heer captured so many intact T34s. Enough to make it worthwhile to establish a T-34 workshop at Riga. After repair and modification the Panzerkampfwagen T-34(r) were issued to German panzer divisions.

[Tiwaz]

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/panzerkampfwagen-t-34r-soviet-t-34-in-german-service.htm
Unreliability goes a long way towards explaining how the Heer captured so many intact T34s. Enough to make it worthwhile to establish a T-34 workshop at Riga. After repair and modification the Panzerkampfwagen T-34(r) were issued to German panzer divisions.

Well, I think at that point any half decent tank which you could capture in useful numbers would be worth the effort.
Germans were not exactly swimming in tanks, so any decent captured gear would be welcome. T-34 would have been repaired to use even if it would have been around Pz III in efficiency and slightly better than original Tiger in reliability.

Or at least it's chassis would have been, like Marders etc were built on chassis of old obsolete tanks and Elefant to use up existing stock of Porsche Tiger chassis.

[nebelwerferXXX]

1) About 85 only Tiger IIs were available by 1939. Speed was the ingredient of a successful Blitzkrieg, so Tiger IIs were too slow for a fast mobile offensive operations.

2) The 1,000 Sherman tanks might have destroyed only 160 Tiger IIs, while the Tiger IIs destroyed all the 1,000 Sherman tanks.

3) It defends, if the 1,000 Tiger IIs were deployed properly, something like this:
---200 Tiger IIs south of Carentan
---200 Tiger IIs near Avranches
---200 Tiger IIs at St.Lo
---200 Tiger IIs at the US beaches
---200 Tiger IIs at the British/Canadian beaches

The scenario would have been different if the Tiger II tanks were deployed as a mobile pillboxes in the Normandy battles. The 1,000 Tiger II tanks would have been a matched for 6,000 Sherman tanks. Early blitzkrieg, like Poland 1939, the low countries and France 1940, the Balkans and Russia 1941 were done by the Early Panzers.

[Tim Smith]

Everything I have read suggests that isn't true. At least not for early model KV1s.

The early model KV-1s was unreliable. So was the early model Tiger I with the Maybach HL210 engine.

http://www.alanhamby.com/maybach.shtml

[BDV]

Forgive me by digging this topic from the grave. The scenario would have been different if the Tiger II tanks were deployed as a mobile pillboxes in the Normandy battles. The 1,000 Tiger II tanks would have been a matched for 6,000 Sherman tanks. Early blitzkrieg, like Poland 1939, the low countries and France 1940, the Balkans and Russia 1941 were done by the Early Panzers.

No. Unless you add to the mix 3,000 FW190 and 3,000 Ju87s+88s piloted by pilots with average combat experience >6 months, the outcome is precisely the same as OTL. A bunch of smoking pillboxes (mobile or otherwise).

[kriegsmarine221]

Forgive me by digging this topic from the grave. The scenario would have been different if the Tiger II tanks were deployed as a mobile pillboxes in the Normandy battles. The 1,000 Tiger II tanks would have been a matched for 6,000 Sherman tanks. Early blitzkrieg, like Poland 1939, the low countries and France 1940, the Balkans and Russia 1941 were done by the Early Panzers.

No. Unless you add to the mix 3,000 FW190 and 3,000 Ju87s+88s piloted by pilots with average combat experience >6 months, the outcome is precisely the same as OTL. A bunch of smoking pillboxes (mobile or otherwise).

And manage to sink that Allied armada in the Channel. No doubt protected by the same if not more aircraft.

[Dave Bender]

321,500 marks for a mobile pillbox? I don't think so. That's what the 82,500 mark StuG III was for.

A German division was supposed to include a battalion of 18 StuGs but like almost everything else the Heer never had enough to meet requirements. Unlike the Tiger II fantasy, Germany probably could have made enough StuGs if they had invested in a couple of large tank factories @ 50 million marks each. That would have given the Heer considerably more punch.

[phylo_roadking]

Unlike the Tiger II fantasy, Germany probably could have made enough StuGs if they had invested in a couple of large tank factories @ 50 million marks each.

AFAIK Germany didn't "grow" her tank production capacity pre-war in the same way they used thinly-veiled government funding/aid to build up the aviation industry...and even during the war, it was still the responsibility of each individual company to reinvest and expand...the only place there was anything approaching full "central" management of a division of the arms industry was the huge expansion and control of Skoda and all the entities brought under its umbrella.