German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than myth

Discussions on WW2 in Eastern Europe.
ljadw
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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#31

Post by ljadw » 02 Sep 2011, 16:50

No,you are giving Soviet losses and German losses ,and your conclusion is a kill ratio of 4/1.This is wrong,as a lot of these losses are caused by mechanical defects,and as only a small part are caused by enemy tanks .As we will never know how big that small part is,we will never know what the panzer kill ratio is .

Politician01
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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#32

Post by Politician01 » 02 Sep 2011, 16:58

ljadw wrote:No,you are giving Soviet losses and German losses ,and your conclusion is a kill ratio of 4/1.This is wrong,as a lot of these losses are caused by mechanical defects,and as only a small part are caused by enemy tanks .As we will never know how big that small part is,we will never know what the panzer kill ratio is .
Well since they were lost in that theatre of war..... its a matter of how you count a casualty.

If you only count tanks that were destroyed because of enemy fire or captured - as losses you are right.

On the other hand if a tank is lost in battle WITHOUT beeing hit by the enemy - why should that not count?


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Kingfish
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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#33

Post by Kingfish » 02 Sep 2011, 18:07

Politician01 wrote:
ljadw wrote:On the other hand if a tank is lost in battle WITHOUT beeing hit by the enemy - why should that not count?
Because the title (and I assume the topic) of this thread is German Panzer kill ratios, not overall loss ratios.

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#34

Post by Politician01 » 02 Sep 2011, 20:02

Kingfish wrote:
Politician01 wrote:
ljadw wrote:On the other hand if a tank is lost in battle WITHOUT beeing hit by the enemy - why should that not count?
Because the title (and I assume the topic) of this thread is German Panzer kill ratios, not overall loss ratios.
here a text I dug up about the kill ratios: In 1941, six or seven Soviet tanks were lost for every German one, by the autumn of 1944 the ratio was down to one to one.

Kershaw and Lewin, Stalinism and nazism Dictatorships in comparison p 219-221
Zaloga and Grandsen, Soviet Tanks and combat vehicles of World War II p 146-149

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#35

Post by Michael Kenny » 02 Sep 2011, 20:22

This mythical 'kill ratio' is nothing more than an excuse to re-fight WW2 and get a result more favourable (to one side) than history delivered in 1945. It is a variation of the 'we wuz outnumbered/in a fair fight we would win' excuses.
The driving force behind the claim (5:1+ kill ratios) is to show that German tanks were able to swat Allied tanks with relative impunity. Therefore if they were 'only' outnumbered by say 4:1 then they would win.
Why else would we have people inventing excuses to exclude huge numbers of knocked out German tanks from the loss record whilst including every Allied tank manufactured.
Take this example:
Politician01 wrote:Since Germany produced no more than 50 000 tanks and spg´s during the whole war many were used against the allies and many never made it to the front because of lack of fuel
There is no such 'kill ratio' and all we have are the total number of tanks lost.
If some want to try and claim every Allied tanks was only knocked out by a panzer then good luck to them.

There are a number of old threads here that give the exact totals of tanks lost in WW2.

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#36

Post by ljadw » 02 Sep 2011, 20:23

But,that's NOT a kill ratio.It is only the number of tanks that were lost due to several reasons .For Germany (till 31 december )2500,for the SU much more(a German source claiming 13400),As such,these figures are irrelevant :you can't draw any conclusions from them :not that the German tanks were better,not that the German crews were better,not that the German tactic was better,nothing .
When the loss ratio was becoming better for the SU,the result is the same :you can't draw any conclusion .

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#37

Post by Sid Guttridge » 03 Sep 2011, 12:30

One can't look at kill ratio (presumably a comparison of the proportion of one side's tanks knocked out by the other side's) in isolation.

Losses are the currency paid to gain an exploitable advantage.

For instance, it might be advantageous to one side to losenumerous tanks for every one opponent knocked out if it achieved a breakthrough in which it gained valuable terrain, or population, or resources, or deprived the enemy of them.

Furthermore, having gained the breakthrough, the loss ratio was likely to be reduced or reversed by the recovery of repairable vehicles, the increased inability of the enemy to recover his repairable vehicles, and the increased likelihood that the enemy would have other recovery problems particularly due to mechanical breakdown and fuel shortage.

The kill ratio in purely tank v. tank combat is only a small component in a much bigger picture, and not necessarily a decisive one.

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#38

Post by hvefsjbm » 03 Sep 2011, 14:47

One cannot make a general tank to tank 'kill' ratio as one does not have the detailed data that make this possible.
Not that the german army did not kill many more tanks than the particularly the red army. And the german army certainly lost because the other side having much more of everything which is a simple statement of fact which does not diminish the victory.
The attack on the numbers of enemy tanks 'killed' by the german army has everything to with the fact that some do feel that a victory becuase of superior numbers is a lesser form of victory.

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#39

Post by hvefsjbm » 03 Sep 2011, 15:01

MajorT wrote:One can't look at kill ratio (presumably a comparison of the proportion of one side's tanks knocked out by the other side's) in isolation.

Losses are the currency paid to gain an exploitable advantage.

For instance, it might be advantageous to one side to losenumerous tanks for every one opponent knocked out if it achieved a breakthrough in which it gained valuable terrain, or population, or resources, or deprived the enemy of them.

Furthermore, having gained the breakthrough, the loss ratio was likely to be reduced or reversed by the recovery of repairable vehicles, the increased inability of the enemy to recover his repairable vehicles, and the increased likelihood that the enemy would have other recovery problems particularly due to mechanical breakdown and fuel shortage.

The kill ratio in purely tank v. tank combat is only a small component in a much bigger picture, and not necessarily a decisive one.
Tanks disable enemy tanks and part of those are total loss. Some tanks that become total loss are repairable tanks that could not be recovered or were recovered and later had to be destroyed because of having to be abandoned by the repair services on a retreat.

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#40

Post by Politician01 » 03 Sep 2011, 19:08

hvefsjbm wrote:
The attack on the numbers of enemy tanks 'killed' by the german army has everything to with the fact that some do feel that a victory becuase of superior numbers is a lesser form of victory.
Well it is........

If u need a superiority of 3 or 4 to one to beat someone than that victory is indeed "unfair"

Take a bar fight as an example. Two men get into a fight but one of them is wastly superior to the other.
So the weakling calls his two friends - and because theres three of them the superior man looses.

That is cowardice.

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Ironmachine
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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#41

Post by Ironmachine » 03 Sep 2011, 19:21

Well it is........
OMG! :lol:
If u need a superiority of 3 or 4 to one to beat someone than that victory is indeed "unfair"
Someone has a rather strange concept of "war" and "fairness". Much more so if one remembers than attacking with more where your enemy has less is the basic recipe for victory.
And then, of course, there is quantity and there is quality. You can be superior on any of them, or on both. Is using a Panther to fight a T-60 "fair"?
Take a bar fight as an example. Two men get into a fight but one of them is wastly superior to the other.
So the weakling calls his two friends - and because theres three of them the superior man looses.
That is cowardice.
Of course, because when the vastly superior guy fought the vastly inferior one alone, that was just raw courage... :roll:

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#42

Post by Politician01 » 03 Sep 2011, 19:56

Ironmachine wrote:
Well it is........
Someone has a rather strange concept of "war" and "fairness". Much more so if one remembers than attacking with more where your enemy has less is the basic recipe for victory.
And then, of course, there is quantity and there is quality. You can be superior on any of them, or on both. Is using a Panther to fight a T-60 "fair"?

Of course, because when the vastly superior guy fought the vastly inferior one alone, that was just raw courage... :roll:
1. I never said that war was fair. BUT it is a big difference if u need half the world to beat down one single country or if you manage it on your own. Thouse are simply two victories that cannot be considered the same.

2. That depends on the circumstances. When the weaker guy starts it or the stronger guy ect.

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#43

Post by ljadw » 03 Sep 2011, 20:19

Politician01 wrote:
hvefsjbm wrote:
The attack on the numbers of enemy tanks 'killed' by the german army has everything to with the fact that some do feel that a victory becuase of superior numbers is a lesser form of victory.
Well it is........

If u need a superiority of 3 or 4 to one to beat someone than that victory is indeed "unfair"

Take a bar fight as an example. Two men get into a fight but one of them is wastly superior to the other.
So the weakling calls his two friends - and because theres three of them the superior man looses.

That is cowardice.
I have heard a lot of nonsens in my live,but saying that military superiority is cowardice, takes the cake 8O
Thus,the German attack on Denmark,Greece,Yogoslavia is cowardice ? :lol:
Superiority is a sound military tactic .
And the exemple of the bar fighting is no cowardice,but an exemple of common sense :P
It is evident you never were involved in bar fighting. :P

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#44

Post by Politician01 » 03 Sep 2011, 20:26

ljadw wrote:
Politician01 wrote:
hvefsjbm wrote:
The attack on the numbers of enemy tanks 'killed' by the german army has everything to with the fact that some do feel that a victory becuase of superior numbers is a lesser form of victory.
Well it is........

If u need a superiority of 3 or 4 to one to beat someone than that victory is indeed "unfair"

Take a bar fight as an example. Two men get into a fight but one of them is wastly superior to the other.
So the weakling calls his two friends - and because theres three of them the superior man looses.

That is cowardice.
I have heard a lot of nonsens in my live,but saying that military superiority is cowardice, takes the cake 8O
Thus,the German attack on Denmark,Greece,Yogoslavia is cowardice ? :lol:
Superiority is a sound military tactic .
The difference is the Germans would have won against Greece, Denmark and Yugoslawia even if they would have used the exact same numbers as their opponents.

Thats exactly what does not apply to the USSR - the USSR needed even Lend Lease to survive - allthoug Germany was fighting at some 4 other fronts. The matter is without the Western help the USSR would have probably lost even with its numerical superiority - thats the whole thing.

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Re: German Panzer kill ratios on eastern front no more than

#45

Post by Michael Kenny » 03 Sep 2011, 21:09

Politician01 wrote:

Take a bar fight as an example. Two men get into a fight but one of them is wastly superior to the other.
So the weakling calls his two friends - and because theres three of them the superior man looses.....
That is cowardice


The matter is without the Western help the USSR would have probably lost..................
Never get in the way of someone smitten by the German performance in in WW2.

I am waiting for:
'it was all done by a few rogue SS men.........
Blonde Knights on White Chargers..............
Holding back the Red Hordes in defence of Western Civilisation..............
I voss only following orders..........

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