German and allied performance comparison

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JonS
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#61

Post by JonS » 03 Sep 2010, 05:16

nebelwerferXXX wrote:No actual evidence:
6 Sherman tanks = 1 Tiger tank
5 Sherman tanks = 1 Panther tank
5 Sherman tanks = 2 Panzer IV tanks

At Omaha beach: Rommel said...The Longest Day
The US V Corps (34,250 men landed, 1,000 killed) = German 352nd Division of about say 12,000 troops with artillery: 3 field and 1 medium battalions.

At Villers Bocage: Tiger Ace
Wittmann's Tiger plus 4 other Tigers and 1 Panzer IV tank destroyed 25 British tanks, 14 half-tracks and 14 Bren gun carriers. Nine days later he was awarded Swords to his Knight's Cross.

At Caen: Allied 'firepower'
An SS panzer grenadier regiment of about 3,000 boys with Panzerfaust bazookas, grenades and MG-42 machine guns, 8 armored cars and 6 SP guns defended the town against attacks of a British army corps of 60,000 men, 600 tanks (including Sherman 'Firefly' tanks) and 600 guns plus 2 battleships, 1 monitor and 1,000 four-engined bombers. The SS regiment was annihilated to the last boy and bullet.

Destroyed German units during the Day:
The 21st Panzer Division with 16,242 men, 127 Panzer IV tanks, 40 assault guns and 24 88-mm guns.
The 711th Division and the 716th Division with 'East' battalions and with Czech, Polish, French and Soviet artillery.
Fail, much?

JonS
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#62

Post by JonS » 03 Sep 2010, 05:29

The good news, though, is that this standard of reasoning means that:
* Howard and 90 other guys = 21st Pz Div + 716th Inf Div
* Rudder and 224 other guys = 352nd Inf Div + 716th Inf Div
* Elements of eight Allied divisions totalling 150,000 men = 1,000,000+ Germans.

Also, Frost and a few guys (maybe two dozen, armed only with pistols, fairburn-sykes fighting knives, and a single umbrella) = two SS Pz Divs, plus other units with flamethrowers, machine guns and high explosives. Frost and his men were anhililated to the last man and bullet.

Wheee! This is fun!


nebelwerferXXX
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#63

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 03 Sep 2010, 05:45

JonS wrote:The good news, though, is that this standard of reasoning means that:
* Howard and 90 other guys = 21st Pz Div + 716th Inf Div
* Rudder and 224 other guys = 352nd Inf Div + 716th Inf Div
* Elements of eight Allied divisions totaling 150,000 men = 1,000,000+ Germans.

Wheee! This is fun!
Troop Ratio: During D-Day
Eisenhower and Montgomery: 175,000 men (156,000 men to land on the first day)
Rommel: 80,000 men in the beachhead sector
---709th Div
---84th Div
---352nd Div
---Seventh Army HQ
---716th Div
---21st Panzer Div
---Army Group B HQ (Rommel)
---Fifteenth Army HQ
---81st Div
---711th Div

Casualties:
Allies: 2,500 killed and 8,500 wounded
German losses unknown

JonS
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#64

Post by JonS » 03 Sep 2010, 05:54

No no no.

At the start of D-Day, the Allies had zero men in France (well, maybe a couple of pilots on the lam, but no formed units). By the end of it, they had maybe 150,000. The Germans had well over 1M men in France and the Low Countries. Those odds - 10:1 against the invaders - are the ones you need to look at.

Anything else is irrelevant.

nebelwerferXXX
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#65

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 03 Sep 2010, 06:16

JonS wrote:No no no.

At the start of D-Day, the Allies had zero men in France (well, maybe a couple of pilots on the lam, but no formed units). By the end of it, they had maybe 150,000. The Germans had well over 1M men in France and the Low Countries. Those odds - 10:1 against the invaders - are the ones you need to look at.

Anything else is irrelevant.
Actually before D-Day there were 100,000 Maquis (the French Resistance) with
---80,000 Sten-guns
---30,000 pistols
---17,000 rifles
---nearly 3,500 Bren-guns
---plus 35,000 other Maquis who had a weapon of some sort

source:
D-DAY Invasion of Hitler's Europe...R.W. Thompson

The Germans in France:
Army: 806,927
SS and Police: 85,230
Volunteers (Foreign): 61,439
German Allies: 13,631
Air Force: 337,140
Navy: 96,084
________________________
Total: 1,400,451
plus Armed Force Auxiliaries: 145,611


source:
D-DAY...Brigadier Peter Young

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Baltasar
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#66

Post by Baltasar » 03 Sep 2010, 16:49

Total: 1,400,451
plus Armed Force Auxiliaries: 145,611
All these LOST against a force about 1/10th their strength.

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Guaporense
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#67

Post by Guaporense » 03 Sep 2010, 21:39

Total: 1,400,451
plus Armed Force Auxiliaries: 145,611
This represents the total military personnel in France. Out of the 9,4 million personnel of the Wehrmacht in June 1944. The total military personnel supporting the Allied forces, directly or indirectly includes people in Britain, US and Canada.

Overall, an American division had a manpower slice of 64.000 of the army(89 divisions in 1944, out of an army of 5,7 million, source: van Creveld, Fighting Power), while a German division had a manpower slice of 25.000 (Heer had 6,7 million men and ~265 divisions). So, if you have a battle with the same number of German and Allied divisions, the Germans would tend to be outnumbered by 2,5 to 1. This includes personnel in all areas of the army, including logistics and men at the hospital.

For example, at Operation Cobra, second to wikipedia's page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cobra), the Allies had 11 divisions, while the Germans had 8 divisions. So the Allies had 704.000 men directly and indirectly fighting about 200.000 Germans.

Zetterling calculated that in late July, the Allies had a 3,8 numerical superiority over the Germans. He also estimated an average 3 to 1 numerical superiority during the entire Operation Overlord, from June to August.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Guaporense
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#68

Post by Guaporense » 03 Sep 2010, 21:57

Oleg Grigoryev wrote:
Guaporense wrote:
Oleg Grigoryev wrote:based on what?
You do realize that what you wrote is a sweeping generalization that you have not backed up with anything up to this point. If anything multiple German defensive operations starting with Demyansk, to Stalingrad, to Velike Luki, Korsun, Kriovograd Eastren Prussia, Budapest etc were based around”no retreat” type of orders.
Clearly, you are one of those that believe that german losses were smaller than Soviet losses because the Germans had Allies in the eastern front?
Clearly, you are one of those that believe that german losses were smaller than Soviet losses because the Germans had Allies in the eastern front?
Frankly, your deducing powers were not all that impressive to begin with, so maybe you should not be relying on them as much.
Thanks for the offense.
I am aware of the fact that Soviet losses are higher than Germans ones – at least till 1945 when German army was ultimately routed and we don’t know how much casualties it actually suffered, hence we cannot compare.
They probably lost 1 million men, while the Soviet forces lost 3 million.
But since USSR was not fighting only Germany the numbers you are using are inherently inaccurate. I, also, take an exception to your methodology, which apparently to allows you to ignore the data that is not in agreement with your views, as well as ignoring questions that were asked of you.
Well, I can also say that not all German casualties in the eastern front were inflicted by the Red Army, there were also partisans and by late 1944, their ex-allies. Still, in the 4quarter of 1944 the ratio of casualties was like before, and the Germans had almost no allies.
Right… why not 75 or 99? Btw how are you going to distinguish between the wound inflicted by mortar fragment , artillery fragment, hand grenade fragment, anti-personal mine shrapnel, bomb fragment?
You wrote
The German artillery inflicted 60% of all Allied causalities, I would guess that Allied artillery inflicted 80% of the German casualties if the average American GI was such a coward.
Um ? How about wounds inflicted by tank guns – do they classify as artillery?
I meant that if American infantry were that bad while their artillery was that good, then artillery would inflict such enormous proportion of losses that infantry would be only used to occupy land that was cleaned by artillery (and air strikes).

I have posted this comment about a study made on the causes of casualties on wounded:
Or even better, compare with the total sample of 217,070 living wounded from the 1st and 3rd armies that fought in Western Europe:

Small arms: 24.6%
Artillery and mortar,
Shell fragments: 60.2%
Blast: 3.2%
Bombs: 4.9%
Other: 5.9%

Source: http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs ... apter1.html
Clearly, they managed to get a nice picture of the causes of casualties.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#69

Post by JAK » 03 Sep 2010, 23:26

Vaeltaja wrote: As far as I am aware the Red Army in winter war is not comparable to Red Army in 1941. In Winter War the political officers had far too much power and the real officers did not have enough. That is even if the officer would have been competent trying to use their own initiative to prevent casualties would have probably meant just one more officer as a casualty.
I thought their(political officers) power had to be reduced already during Winter Wars later stages and that on the whole they began reorganizing and retraining troops even on the front to get better results...
Domen121 wrote: Large part of the war was fought to the north from the Karelian Isthmus.
I may be exaggerate a bit but the terrain really is against big troop movements north of lake Ladoga and going there is really rough making any large scale operations up there not worth the effort. Soviets were able to exhaust Finnish and German advance there completely during 1941 and the front was basically static till 1944.

-Jari

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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#70

Post by RichTO90 » 04 Sep 2010, 01:24

Guaporense wrote:This represents the total military personnel in France. Out of the 9,4 million personnel of the Wehrmacht in June 1944. The total military personnel supporting the Allied forces, directly or indirectly includes people in Britain, US and Canada.
Still peddling the apples versus peanuts comparison crap I see.
Overall, an American division had a manpower slice of 64.000 of the army(89 divisions in 1944, out of an army of 5,7 million, source: van Creveld, Fighting Power), while a German division had a manpower slice of 25.000 (Heer had 6,7 million men and ~265 divisions). So, if you have a battle with the same number of German and Allied divisions, the Germans would tend to be outnumbered by 2,5 to 1. This includes personnel in all areas of the army, including logistics and men at the hospital.
Sigh. Total US Army Ground Forces Strength as of 30 June 1944 was 3,492,000/89 = 39,236. If we take the same measure for the Germans we have 6,510,000 (Heer strength)/240= 27,125. Of course, there was also the 350,000 Foreign Volunteers = 28,583. Oh, but wait a moment, the US Army strength includes 1,324,000 Army Service Forces personnel that in most cases were performing the job of troops in the Wehrmacht that were not part of the Heer, such as the RAD, NSKK, and OT...2,300,000 of them. OTOH, to be fair, the German Heer strength includes the Ersatzheer. So, gee, I have an idea, let's do a closer comparison. How about comparing the strength of the US Army Ground Forces tactical units (divisions, combat support units, and AGF service support units) 2,604,000/89 = 29,258 to the Feldheer plus its supporting Foreign troops 4,350,000/240= 18,125.

Of course that only matters if you are do a global comparison, which in in this case is pretty stupid, since you are attempting to create an artificial and unsupportable figure for a hypothetical and yet have been given the correct theater figures to do a proper comparison with many times before. But, could it possibly be that you simply dislike inconvenient facts and prefer to simply hammer away with data that has been shown to be incorrect over and over again? :roll:
For example, at Operation Cobra, second to wikipedia's page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cobra), the Allies had 11 divisions, while the Germans had 8 divisions. So the Allies had 704.000 men directly and indirectly fighting about 200.000 Germans.
Yeah, whenever possible go back to a Wiki page that you can simply insert whatever figures you like into yourself before quoting them...oh, wait, yeah, that's right that's what you're doing yet again. :roll:

You could actually do some work and come up with comparisons that mean something and that are based upon more than a Wiki page. For example, for 1 July 1944:

US First Army Combat Troops totaled 207,737 men, 1,170 Arty, 781 Medium Tks, 459 Lt Tks, 180 M10 TD, and 180 towed 3” TD.
7. AOK totaled 100,000 men, 358 Arty (possibly 96 Heer Arty as well), 217 PaK, 296 Pz, StG, PzJg, PaK SP

Or, for COBRA, US First Army totaled 270,675...no I guess I'm tired of doing your work for you. :P
Zetterling calculated that in late July, the Allies had a 3,8 numerical superiority over the Germans. He also estimated an average 3 to 1 numerical superiority during the entire Operation Overlord, from June to August.
Yes, he did, and its an argument that I have had with him for some time...he quite simply miscounted by using total Allied troop arrivals and compared them to the estimated German troops sent, which is methodologically problematic for a number of reasons already mentioned...many times.

Oh well, it's pretty obvious that you are simply incapable of thinking outside the box you have so carefully hammered yourself into. Sad really, since my experience with economists (econometricians really) working with historical data has normally been both refreshing and insightful.

Cheers!
Richard Anderson
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day
Stackpole Books, 2009.

Delta Tank
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#71

Post by Delta Tank » 04 Sep 2010, 02:56

RichTO90,

What do these acronyms mean?
such as the RAD, NSKK, and OT...2,300,000 of them.
Mike

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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#72

Post by RichTO90 » 04 Sep 2010, 03:01

Delta Tank wrote:RichTO90,

What do these acronyms mean?
such as the RAD, NSKK, and OT...2,300,000 of them.
Mike
Reichsarbeitsdienst - general labor
Nationalsozialistkraftfahrkorps - the Wehrmacht Transportation Corps
Organisation-Todt - engineering support and cosntruction
Richard Anderson
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day
Stackpole Books, 2009.

Delta Tank
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#73

Post by Delta Tank » 04 Sep 2010, 03:51

RichTO90 wrote:
Delta Tank wrote:RichTO90,

What do these acronyms mean?
such as the RAD, NSKK, and OT...2,300,000 of them.
Mike
Reichsarbeitsdienst - general labor
Nationalsozialistkraftfahrkorps - the Wehrmacht Transportation Corps
Organisation-Todt - engineering support and cosntruction
RichTO90,

Didn't they use the Reichsbahn? Shouldn't they be counted? We provided our own military railroad train personnel Apologies for any misspelling.

Mike

RichTO90
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#74

Post by RichTO90 » 04 Sep 2010, 05:29

Delta Tank wrote: Didn't they use the Reichsbahn? Shouldn't they be counted? We provided our own military railroad train personnel Apologies for any misspelling.

Mike
No, I would not neccessarily include them. The personnel of the Reichsbahn were state employees, but IIRC in France they only had administrative roles since the French railway system was used for supplies. The Reichsbahn operated principally within the Reich and the General Gouvernment IIRC?
Richard Anderson
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day
Stackpole Books, 2009.

Tom Peters
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Re: German and allied performance comparison

#75

Post by Tom Peters » 04 Sep 2010, 05:36

From Nebelwerfer:

-------
---709th Div
---84th Div
---352nd Div
---Seventh Army HQ
---716th Div
---21st Panzer Div
---Army Group B HQ (Rommel)
---Fifteenth Army HQ
---81st Div
---711th Div
-------

The 84th division did not participate in the initial Normandy battles, and the 81st division was in the east front.

Mad Dog

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