Michael Kenny wrote:I did try to talk sensibly to you in my last post but it seems you will accept no criticism of this book which you constantly use to rubbish practicaly everyone who's post you answer. It seems this book is the Font of all knowledge and you seem unable to understand that it MIGHT not be correct in every little detail it publishes. Well as I am not of sufficient standing for you to take seriously let me now carefully guide you through some facts published by Authors who can't be dismissed as amateurs. Schieder in Tigers In Combat I and II lists the strengh of 503 on 18/07/44 as 32 tanks. A loss of 13 Tigers that only about 5 were Tiger II. This gives a loss of 8 Tiger I. 101 are listed as having 25 Tiger I on 20/7/44. A loss of 20 Tiger I. 102 are listed as having 38 Tiger I on 26/7/44. A loss of 7 Tiger I. This is a total of 35 lost Tiger I by July 27th. As Schneider is using mostly survivors testimony to reconstruct these loses(nearly all paperwork was lost in the retreat) this figure is on the conservative side but let us use them anyway. This is STILL 35 Tiger I NOT 23. Zetterling says the Germans admit to losing 23 Tiger tanks by 27/7/44 but as the Tiger II were also Tigers we shall add them to the total and we now have 40 LOST Tigers. There is still 3 Tiger Is from Pz.Lehr that no one knows how or where they were destroyed but they certainly were destroyed. Now where did I get the Figure of 15 lost by 102? Have you seen a book 'Waffen SS Panzer Units I Normandy 1944' by M.Wood and J. Dugdale?(Books International 2000). The Authors used only the surviving documents FROM GERMAN ARCHIVES to give a full listing of all the Meldungs,ready for action states and Panzer deliveries and allocations for divisional sub-units for all the Units that fought in Normandy. In it on page 187 SS sPzAbt 102 have 30 Tigers for 31/7/44. Nearly all these ORIGINAL documents are published on the right-hand page with a translation on the left page. Unlike Zetterling the Authors didn't give us their opinion on what they meant ,they published the originals so poorly informed non-Swedish Doctors in History and Experts on the German Army and Archives could use our basic maths skills to add up these totals. In doing so it seems we find the Swedish Emperor isn't wearing any clothes! To be fair Zetterling doesn't deserve that last remark. He has done a very good job in his books but he isn't infallible. You do him no favours with your never-ending barrage of statistics and percentages that can be twisted and turned to make black is white in some cases. My research,modest though it is,was into what happened on the Battlefield and it has shown me that all those figures on bits of paper rarely matched what was going on in the field. Try getting your feet dirty in a little practical research and please BUY ANOTHER BOOK! Then you will double your knowledge. As a parting shot Zetterling on page 181 says 102 only had 30 Tigers on 30/7/44. If they only lost 3 where did the other 12 go?. He also states on page 191 that 503 had 23 Tigers written off and on page 177 that 101 had only 25 Tigers on 1/8/44. That is a bigger total loss than my figure!. I think you have shot yourself in the foot here. Don't be too hard on yourself!
You are just proving how inexpert you are I hope schinder was able to do more than you. Comabt stories from a few survivors 50 years after the war vs german archives I wonder what is more reliable.
The 102 had 20 operation tigers on the 22 jul and 5 in short term repir. Your figure of 20 des does not jibe with any probable long term repair or sent to factory numbers.
Neither can panzer lehr lost tigers be added in becqause you have NO PROOF they were lost before the 27 july.
Zetterling list 30 op tanks of the 102 on the 30 jul 44. Even more if you includes all the short term long term and sent to factory numbers which aren't listed. So your second source is also questionable. At least it seems to disagrees with zetterling ger archive number.
Is zetterling the definative souce of tigers in normandy no way. Athough you cerainly prove extremly yourself to be the worst of all sources. Like I said I'll take what zetterling says over the mumbo jumbo you try and feed us any day of the week. You can trust and beileve whatever you want to but don´t go looking for waves of converts.
Starting str sub str does not equal losses. You have to include all tanks not just op but also short long term repair and those evacuated to factories. Plus you need to know reinforment and that op tank etc... str is the actual vehicle you think it is. You seem to have poor knowlege of ger arm reporting and are misintereting eveything you read because of that.
PS Zetterling did post MANY archive matererial already translated in his work. If he had tried to include more then his 462 p book which probably has over 1000 ger archival references would have been usalable and unprintable. If you want to check his work and can´t go to the archives order the microfilm yourself.