German and allied performance comparison

Discussions on every day life in the Weimar Republic, pre-anschluss Austria, Third Reich and the occupied territories. Hosted by Vikki.
Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

German and allied performance comparison

#1

Post by Darrin » 22 Jan 2004, 15:37

http://www.uni.edu/%7Elicari/asl.html

There a link on this page performance that tries to critique dupuy and says the allies were better. My comments will follow soon.

Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

#2

Post by Darrin » 22 Jan 2004, 17:17

Arty numbers and shells
----------------------------

He says at one point that the allies outnumbered the ger forces with arty but in tuth that is only true for rus with regards to weapons. The western allies and the ger had similar numbers of arty weapons in normandy at least if you include rocket arty. The problem was the west allies generally fired 5 or more times as many shells as the ger. The rus themselves despite having all those extra guns fired no more rounds than the ger.

The dupuy model as I will call it does not take into account the log such as ammo and fuel etc. In truth since the number of guns bettween the west and ger was similar there was no diff in the weapons OIL i guess it is called. In fact the allies took 5 times as many shell as the ger to achive tot per cas that was slightly elevated compared to the ger. Yet no where is this taken into account so the western allies actually would have an elevated CEV ie prform even worse than what duypouy comes up with in his numbers. The rus on the other hand would be slightly elevated but as they avg around 2.5 rus equal to 1 ger in 43 the efffect can´t be that great.


Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

#3

Post by Darrin » 22 Jan 2004, 19:00

OLI numbers unrealistic
---------------------------

An oil number of arty 105 how that would make it euvalent to 1367 springfield does not seem out of the ordinary. Indirect fire was since WWI and leaning up to today a very eff way of hitting your enemy with out getting hit yourself. Over 50% of ALL cas are due to arty, motors etc... This would not be the case if the small nukmber of arty was not given a sig adv over the much larger number of riflemen around. For example the smaller size 44 inf div usually had somewhere around 36 105mm how plus other arty.

The air force OILs are also critized a P47 is rated at being equal to 3461 springfiild rifles. While the alllies had large numbers of planes the actual number around for any one battle was pretty low. By the 1st of sep the allies had at least 50 div and the actual str of the allied tac airforce was close to 2000. Not including SB which were rarly used on the front line. Thats a grand total of 40 planes per div per day but thats a max that would not be achived they wern´t all op and never avg 1 mission a day.

When dupuy first started his anylsis of the normandy data after italy apparently he though the airforce would remain as effectiove as it had been. He found out he had to double the eff of the airforce to account for the actual resluts they were seeing in normandy compared to italy.

The air component of the battle according to someone at the dupuy int chis or rich was below 10% in 90% of cases normandy I think. The allied airforce does not seem to be a major contributer to the front line combat and any overrating should be minamal. At the same time the ger managed to cause more losses to the allies despite thier rear area being attacked mainly by SB which aren´t included in this total. If anything the ger numbers are underrated becase of this.

Even the tanks are critized as being equilvalent to 2600 springfilds. But again the tanks aircraft aand arty aren´t as common as riflemen and have to have large modifiers to make the battles match the realistic results. Each US inf div might of had an indep tank bat with 70 tanks of all types although not all may be operational. When you get into panzer divs that diff but they are unique and less common formations.

I think its important to realize part of WWII was to have a combined arms army with riflemen arty tanks and planes. No one could afford to skip any of these compaonets then or know. If you don´t give large adv to these rare expensive parts of the army then the predictions would not fit reality. And everyone would just fill the ranks with springfild rifle men and win the war that way.

Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

#4

Post by Darrin » 22 Jan 2004, 19:39

Mostly Defense
-----------------

While he claims that the allies were mostly attacking during this period and that this must somehow unbalance the results but he dosen´t say why. The inital anyslis involved normandy and italy were although mostly the ger did defend they also tried large attacks. To this they have addded the kursk and ard both sectors in which the ger attack significantly and the results were not disimilar.

The apendix 10 in zetterlings normandy 44 book has a destruction of some of these critques. In this appendix chris lawerance from TDI conc on john Browns book. Its intersing to note mr brown father was in the 88th draftee div and although dudpuy studies rate this as the best US inf div its clear he is not satisfdied with this. He wants it to be the best div period.

Dupuy in general
--------------------

I think the origanl idea with the dupuy studies was to find out which US divs preformed best and try to find out why that was. It has since evolved into far more and has even been used out side the scope of WWII as far as I know. Col dupuy was in the US arty in WWII in the pacifc and died in 1995 so he won´t be able to respond or update everthing personnal.

A lot of the people at TDI would like to see changes to thier model but that would require more money from the US army to develop it which hasn´t come along in years. They get money for small projects and to collect data on large battles but the army wants the data to test some of the newer programs from other companies or institues. Such as atlas and rand... I´ve actually heard a rumor at the TDI site that the newer porg tried to run the invasion of france in 40 and ger ended up losing.

The program and attempt to campare actual data certainly was one of the first and came along in an age before we all had computers at are tips. I´m quite sure a few of the critisms are valid but only to a minor degree and nobody at least today thinks it is perfect. Although it seems to preform nearly as well as the much newer programs. In fact what I see other people crowing about it from TDI is it has been validated historically for decades on real data. Comboned with the fact anybody can look at the engine just by looking at the books or updates thier is apperantly little documentation for the other programs.

Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

#5

Post by Darrin » 22 Jan 2004, 22:25

Ger had high numbers of panzer divs in Italy
---------------------------------------------------

Well ger also had a high number of panzer divs at many of its other important battles such as normandy, ard, kursk etc.... That didn´t seem to sig hurt the allied CEV either.

While ger may of had more arm div in italy then the allies that doesn´t count all those indep tank and TD bats. I would be suprised if the allies actually had less tanks and tds then germans.

Now even if the author theory that the ger had more tanks in Italy and thats why the allies preformed worse was true. It is now irrelevent because the ger tanks and allied tanks would be incorporated into the indivial OIL combat effects.

Plus if the authors stament earlier were true that the arm OIL numbers are overrated. Then in this case it would be the ger OLI numbers not allies as he argues for in normandy that would be overated. Ie the ger CEV numbers dupuy finds would be even higher in reality not the allied ones.... He is clearly arguing both sides of the case at this point.

Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

#6

Post by Darrin » 22 Jan 2004, 22:44

Russian's better than germans
-----------------------------------

In mid 43 the rus outnumbered the ger in men by OVER two and sufferd OVER 4 times as many total personal cas. The avg ger soilder was almost 10 more likly to cause a cas. These ratios continued with only a tiny change during jun-aug until the end of 44. In 45 there are no good ger numbers just as in 41 there are no good rus numbers. In 45 the rus still suffered just as large or higher cas as earlier. Even aginst a ger losing her home prod and distribution being attacked from many dorections the ger were still able to inficlt large cas on the rus in 45.

Its really hard to see the rus as better than the ger in 43-45. Better than before definatly but part of that had to do with mobilizng and army that was about 3 times bigger then 41. I could also see a small ger decline during the war but not the total failure the auther preditcs. Look at ard and berlin neither of which are direct products of a failed army.

Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

#7

Post by Darrin » 23 Jan 2004, 15:31

Bad ger org eff because cap equip
---------------------------------------

The ger did use cap equip to a much larger degree then the allies. They even did this in 39-42 though when even the author admits the ger were best. In truth part of the reason for using cap eq was nessisity the ger just did not have enough of thier own good eq to use in cases. Esp since they were going through a huge mil expansion from 100,000 no tanks airplanes or subs to millions in 39. They were certainly going to be shortages of things that they had to find other ways to supply.

Also while most peole consider the cap equip a supply problem on the other side of the coin the contruction it was eff to use. To totally abandon cap eq when you cap spare parts ammo dumps and even ammo factories sometimes would be very inefficent. Esp when most of the cap eq ended up in gar and traing units then actually on the front line in russia. It was only after the opening of the real second front in 44 that this became a problem.

Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

#8

Post by Darrin » 23 Jan 2004, 22:26

More allied aircraft numbers
--------------------------------

As with arty often times it is just not the number of planes that determine the real numbers used over the battlefield. For example the ger despite being outnumbered in air planes 3-1 at kursk flew as many sorties as did the rus. The phrase the allies always had more planes might be true but there were battles were this was not really true from a sortie def.

This is importat becasue the author claims the the combat power of airplanes is overrated in the TDI model. And since the allies always had more planes then ger it would be more upsetting to them. This would be partly offset in some cases since the ger even with fewer airplanes flew as many missons. At least at points of the war in the east such as kursk. Although this might be a neg point for ger at some points of the war in the west.

The ger at kursk had a 3 times operationality ability over the rus. And a 5-1 or 5 times as many rus planes killed as ger. Despite outnumbering the ger planes by 3-1 they flew as many sorties and rus suffered 5-1 kills.

Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

#9

Post by Darrin » 24 Jan 2004, 18:14

Western allies did casuse more ger mias in 44
-----------------------------------------------------

While the western allies suffered sligtly more tot per cas then the ger. They inflicted much higher mias on the ger than they themselves suffered. The perm cas kia plus mia were much more significant and numours for the ger. WIA may recover and retun to duty but the rest don´t.

But the western allies need many times more arty ammo, airplane sorties, tanks, trucks, fuel etc... to cause these extra perm cas. It also seems at times that although the total number of cas might be known fairly accurtly the exact breakdown is fuzzy. That might be why the tot cas are all included toghether with no weighing for the more perm ones.

While many of the factors above are taken into account in the dupuy model the ammo, sorties, fuel, and trucks weren´t.

Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

#10

Post by Darrin » 25 Jan 2004, 17:49

Most of this authors critism of dudpuy are very mild or just untrue. He even statrs getting confussed and arguing both sides of the fence. It seems the author can´t point to a single emperical study that shows what he believs is true so he will discount all of them even if they all point in the same direction. The author belevies the allies were better at the end of the war because they succeded org and the ger failed his actual proof for these statments is totally lacking.

ChristopherPerrien
Member
Posts: 7051
Joined: 26 Dec 2002, 01:58
Location: Mississippi

#11

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 25 Jan 2004, 18:46

No one can translate all your abbreviations and short-cuts. It definitely won't go though a translator, so you are barring more than half the forum for being able to read or reply, to your topic.

User avatar
subskipper
Member
Posts: 772
Joined: 09 Mar 2002, 18:16
Location: Sweden
Contact:

#12

Post by subskipper » 25 Jan 2004, 19:44

I have to agree with Mr. Perrien on this one. I find the subject very interesting, but your posts are hard to read and somewhat confusing with all the abbrevations. I also want to state I do not post this in order to insult you or anything like that. Just wanted to point that out. :)


~Henric Edwards

Darrin
Member
Posts: 831
Joined: 17 Apr 2002, 11:44
Location: Canada

#13

Post by Darrin » 26 Jan 2004, 20:46

I have been having a great discussion about rus and ger art eff in the following thread if anybody would like to follow along.

Michael Kenny
Member
Posts: 8249
Joined: 07 May 2002, 20:40
Location: Teesside

#14

Post by Michael Kenny » 26 Jan 2004, 21:44

Here you are Darrin You forgot the link

http://www.feldgrau.net/phpBB2/viewtopi ... highlight=

Its the usual Darrin post, i.e. the Russians were crap and the Germans did everything better than them and were winning the war in 1945!

User avatar
Qvist
Member
Posts: 7836
Joined: 11 Mar 2002, 17:59
Location: Europe

#15

Post by Qvist » 27 Jan 2004, 14:05

The same article is being discussed at TDI:

http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/ubb/Forum ... 00028.html


cheers

Post Reply

Return to “Life in the Third Reich & Weimar Republic”