Iskander neptu wrote:On many discussions on this forum I have seen a near universal acceptance of 3:1 and even 5:1 tank kill ratios in favour of the Wehrmacht on the eastern front.
However, the production numbers for medium and heavy tanks from both sides do not seem to sustain this.
Well the Panzers frequently had worse odds then 5:1 and had to spoil a Ru attack, beyong 1000m, with tanks, SPG and dug in '88s. Their tactical genius was getting to the right place and right time, Zeiss optics, & e.g. captured Ru 75mms on non Ge recycled chassis.
The tank aces will have done rather better then that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wittmann
The fly boys ditto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel
But the war was lost (or won depending on side) on logistics...
Iskander neptu wrote:
Now, until the end of 1944 there is still a german army in the field, the fight can be considered "even", the germans still have a functioning army and they have been pushed back to their borders.
If you go back to beginning of '44 things were bad enough for the Ge, and then the USAF (primarily, the RAF did their bit) damaged refineries, synthetics and benzol plants to reduce refined products to a fraction 75-25% of month on month '43 figures.
The Ru attacks & advances of '44 were designed to & left the Ge vehicles stuck in Russia with empty tanks. The Normandy beach head break out similar. The odds on the E front were 1:2 for the Russians at the beginning of '44, so hardly even even if they had had petrol, in their tanks.
The allies targeted transport as well as fuel production, e.g. mining the Danube from the air, to handicap logistic operations in S Russia, when they were most critical. The battle of the Bulge was also targetted (by the Ge) at supply logistics, but failed to reach its objectives...
The 1000m tank engagements were romantic if you were a Panzer gunner, but you needed air cover as well...
Noel