Tiger I versus 76mm ( US )

[Don Juan]

DonJ,
when judging mileages, one might interfere that the Comet, A30 and Cromwell are all very late ww2 AFV and benefitted from extensive post ww2 service (with all improvements that caused), intruduced considerably later than the PANTHER. The CENTURION is a post war serving AFV, entirely.
According to Coombs, British tank production and the War Economy 1934-1945 (London/New York 2013), p.90 (for what´s worth), these mileages were not obtainable midwar:
average mls before major drive train breakdown / replacement of engine under british environmental conditions:

CRUSADER 1942: 400mls
VALENTINE 1942: 950mls
CHURCHILL 1942: 500mls
MATHILDA II 1942: 800mls
COVENANTER 1942: 600mls

Perhaps Your data shows how much the average overhaul times improved late ww2/post ww2? At least the Cromwell sent to the US seems not to have been fit to 5000km, yet, if I understand the report correctly.

I think these figures are from a one off 1000 miles test conducted at Bovington during July/August 1942, at least that is what I recall from reading the Coombs book, and so are not quoted overhaul figures. They also aren't the figures that the War Office published themselves for this trial, which showed that, for example, both Covenanters reached 1200 miles before experiencing engine failures. I believe Coombs got his figures from a Nuffield Mechanizations report which is held in the British Motor Vehicle Heritage Trust, so this is something I need to track down sometime.

As for the actual overhaul mileages for these tanks, these would be 1500 miles for the Crusader and Covenanter, 1000 miles for the Matilda, and 2500 miles for the Valentine (Leyland engined variant). The Crusader overhaul life was reduced to 1200 miles for desert conditions, due to the constant dust. 500 miles was probably correct for the Churchill during this period, but this was raised to about 1000 to 1200 miles by the beginning of 1944. The GMC engined Valentines sent to the Middle East/North Africa weren't given an official overhaul figure, because they ran to the end of the campaign without having had a single overhaul - many of them had over 4000 miles on the clock.

Of course, overhaul figures do not tell the whole story, as the Crusader tended to be an unreliable tank when operating between overhauls, and the Matilda was extremely maintenance intensive. Overhauls themselves are not always comparable - for example a Matilda took six times more manhours to overhaul than an M3 Stuart.

The Cromwell wasn't really fit for 3000 miles until March/April 1944, when the "Full Specification" was finalised, although the main modification that improved its durability was introduced in late 1943 - this was the change in the final drive ratio from 3.71:1 to 4.5:1, which also reduced its speed from ~40 mph to ~32 mph. As I've stated upthread, I think the Panther was a very ambitious design, and so it doesn't surprise me that it had severe reliability/durability issues. I think it is generally under-appreciated just how much new ground was being broken with WW2 tank designs, and to expect a 45 ton tank capable of 30 mph to perform adequately with just a couple of years' development is unrealistic imho. It is notable that the British kept the maximum speed of the Centurion Mk.I down to 23 mph, and I think subsequent models were even slower. I suspect this was a compromise in order to enhance durability.

[Ulater]

Patton, while defending the virtue of M4 Sherman, claimed that Third army, since its activation in 1st August, destroyed 2,287 tanks, including 808 Panthers and Tigers, for 851 losses of M4 tanks.

Now find me a post or thread anywhere where someone runs with those numbers and tries to claim they are correct.
Patton's numbers are about as inflated as Schneiders.

Nah, those are just some interesting numbers.


Obviously, we all know that western allies met these unicorns of Tiger variety only 3 times ever.




And speaking of Poles.

Prisoners Recorded: up to 23 Aug. – 87 Offrs
(incl: 1 Lt.-Gen, 4 Cols, 2 Lt.-Cols.) and 3,576
ORs. Unrecorded: handed over to the Americans
without receipt when Major Zgorzelski’s group
was cut off from the div: - 50 offrs and 1,400 ORs,
handed over by 24 Lancers and 10 Dragoons.
Total: over 5,000 prisoners.

Booty: Captured and destroyed eqpt – 55 tks
and armoured vehs, (incl 14 Panthers, 6 Tigers,
12 Mk IV, 5 Mk III, 2 Mk II), 2 guns SP (88 mm),
14 armoured cars, 44 guns (various types), 38
Armoured tracked vehs for tp transport, 207
Motor vehs, 152 horse-drawn vehicles.

"The captured eqpt was recorded at
co-ordinates and gives the result of the last
three days of the battle (18-21 Aug). The amt
of capture eqpt is however much larger, but as
the co-ordinates were not given in the reports of
the other units they were disregarded. It can be
estimated that the same amt of eqpt was capture
in the period 14-18 Aug."


And whether somebody "runs" with them, or acknowledges these stats, has no impact on how true or untrue they are.

[critical mass]

DonJ,

thanks again for sharing this very insightful memo.

[Michael Kenny]

And whether somebody "runs" with them, or acknowledges these stats, has no impact on how true or untrue they are.

They are patently untrue. Anyone running with Patton's number would be considered a fool. No one with any understanding would use them. The best info on Unit claims is the AARs and none of them use any total remotely near those totals.
They are as idiotic as the numbers for Tiger Abteilung printed in Wilbeck's Sledgehammers books.

[Richard Anderson]

Patton, while defending the virtue of M4 Sherman, claimed that Third army, since its activation in 1st August, destroyed 2,287 tanks, including 808 Panthers and Tigers, for 851 losses of M4 tanks.

Umm, yes, sure. Except he was writing publicly , at the behest of Marshall and Eisenhower, addressing the issues raised by Hanson Baldwin in the New York Times series (3-5 January 1945) that criticized Ordnance. His letter was published by the Washington Evening Star on 28 March and pretty much squashed the controversy, which was the whole point of the exercise. I'm not going to bother to look if that was the "real" figures compiled by TUSA G-2 to date - it might be, or it might not be - since I really don't care any more. IT WAS NOT AN OFFICIAL ARMY "CLAIM". It was a politicized response to a politicized issue. Go figure.

[Christianmunich]

Check the evolution of the arguments. Once massive ridiculous Allied kill claims are shown we see the new argument "nobody believed them anyways". How is this a proper counter argument? People were upset with me claiming the US had extreme overclaim and now they counter argument is "it was so high nobody used it in forums"? How does this make sense.

Kenny has still not replied to the Zalgoa issue he now asks me to ask Zaloga, I have no reason to ask Zaloga I know US kill claims were bonkers. You are the person implying zaloga used fake numbers to create a false kill claim.

Here is kennies argument

Sorry but I don't get my kill-claims from books when the primary documents are available for inspection. I would never, for example, believe any of Schneiders kill-claims for the Tigers so why should I bother with Zaloga's numbers.

If you don't use secondary sources is irrelevant. I did. I quoted Zaloga who showed massive US overclaim. You still have not replied to this. Everything you say is diversion. Do you believe Zaloga got the numbers wrong or not? If not how do you explain the US overclaimed so heavily.

You cherry picking war dairies doesn't help. You don't even corroborate the kill claims in the war dairies you merely post some with "apparently low" numbers.

[Christianmunich]

Patton, while defending the virtue of M4 Sherman, claimed that Third army, since its activation in 1st August, destroyed 2,287 tanks, including 808 Panthers and Tigers, for 851 losses of M4 tanks.

Umm, yes, sure. Except he was writing publicly , at the behest of Marshall and Eisenhower, addressing the issues raised by Hanson Baldwin in the New York Times series (3-5 January 1945) that criticized Ordnance. His letter was published by the Washington Evening Star on 28 March and pretty much squashed the controversy, which was the whole point of the exercise. I'm not going to bother to look if that was the "real" figures compiled by TUSA G-2 to date - it might be, or it might not be - since I really don't care any more. IT WAS NOT AN OFFICIAL ARMY "CLAIM". It was a politicized response to a politicized issue. Go figure.

Of course, you are not going to look because those numbers fully defeat your argument. US forces had massive overclaim, far more than German forces and you know it. No amount of smilies changes that.

Histan already showed some numbers and they fully support my claims.

[Ulater]

Patton, while defending the virtue of M4 Sherman, claimed that Third army, since its activation in 1st August, destroyed 2,287 tanks, including 808 Panthers and Tigers, for 851 losses of M4 tanks.

Umm, yes, sure. Except he was writing publicly , at the behest of Marshall and Eisenhower, addressing the issues raised by Hanson Baldwin in the New York Times series (3-5 January 1945) that criticized Ordnance. His letter was published by the Washington Evening Star on 28 March and pretty much squashed the controversy, which was the whole point of the exercise. I'm not going to bother to look if that was the "real" figures compiled by TUSA G-2 to date - it might be, or it might not be - since I really don't care any more. IT WAS NOT AN OFFICIAL ARMY "CLAIM". It was a politicized response to a politicized issue. Go figure.

Its a number. Feel about it however you want.

I would really like to know how you know IT WAS NOT AN OFFICIAL ARMY CLAIM ROFLMAOLOLOLO when you actually dont care enough to check. You can just explain that reality to me.

[Christianmunich]

Patton, while defending the virtue of M4 Sherman, claimed that Third army, since its activation in 1st August, destroyed 2,287 tanks, including 808 Panthers and Tigers, for 851 losses of M4 tanks.

Umm, yes, sure. Except he was writing publicly , at the behest of Marshall and Eisenhower, addressing the issues raised by Hanson Baldwin in the New York Times series (3-5 January 1945) that criticized Ordnance. His letter was published by the Washington Evening Star on 28 March and pretty much squashed the controversy, which was the whole point of the exercise. I'm not going to bother to look if that was the "real" figures compiled by TUSA G-2 to date - it might be, or it might not be - since I really don't care any more. IT WAS NOT AN OFFICIAL ARMY "CLAIM". It was a politicized response to a politicized issue. Go figure.

Its a number. Feel about it however you want.

I would really like to know how you know IT WAS NOT AN OFFICIAL ARMY CLAIM ROFLMAOLOLOLO when you actually dont care enough to check. You can just explain that reality to me.

Mr Anderson and others have those numbers, the numbers are extremely high and show rampant overclaim. More importantly, the overclaim is far higher than for German units which is the crux of the issue. Another user already published a partial set.

The VIII corps alone claimed to have destroyed ~1000 "tanks" and found another 1k or so abandoned, this corps alone claims to have either destroyed or found 2k tanks. The numbers are extremely unrealistic that is why they are now withheld in the name of "research".

I have also collected some claims:

* 3rd Armoured division: 2205 tanks and SPGS destroyed and abandoned

* 4th Armoured division: 847 "tanks"

* 7th Armoured division: 720 "tanks"

* 14th Armoured division: 600 tanks and spg guns

* 3rd Army: 2287 "tanks"

49 analysed TDs: 1344 total

601st 155

628th: 55

634th: 68

701st: 87

702nd: 103 tanks and 51 SPG guns

703rd: 90

823rd: 113 tanks and 13 SPG

899th: 71 tanks and 22 SPG

Those are some I found, often the description isn't clear, if they divide by tanks and spgs we can't know what they really mean. So some leeway should be given. There is obvious overlap the numbers are randomly given here, the TDs are included in the total TD count. 3rd Army includes obviously some of those other units given and some divisions include some of the TDs

The numbers are for ETO only to my knowledge. But I didn't give much attention to them before as we see they are so overclaimed their research relevant is limited.

The numbers given are only for some divisions units etc, no free TBs no infantry divisions et cetera. The Wehrmacht had like 8k tanks in the theatre of which some were relocated. The British Canadian and Polish units obviously also fought in this theatre. Little doubt the Wehrmacht was magnitudes more accurate despite what people claimed for decades.

[Richard Anderson]

Its a number. Feel about it however you want.

I don't feel about it at all...its a number, just as you say. It may or may not be different from what the TUSA G-2 "claimed" through mid-March, or it may not be, I honestly don't care and I'm not going to add up the monthlies to see. I already did that with the "Lorraine" figures for no coherent response, so I doubt the batting average will improve if I do it again.

I would really like to know how you know IT WAS NOT AN OFFICIAL ARMY CLAIM ROFLMAOLOLOLO when you actually dont care enough to check. You can just explain that reality to me.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton, because it all depends on what your definition of an "official Army claim" is? BTW, I just rechecked and Patton wrote those figures in a private letter to Lieutenant General Thomas T. Handy, Deputy Chief of Staff of the War Department General Staff, 17 March 1945, but after he held a press conference at TUSA HQ at Eisenhower's request on the subject. However, since I don't have a transcript of the conference, I don't know what figures he quoted there. Anyway, after he received it, Handy, with Marshall's approval, released the letter to the Evening Star, four days after Bradley also held a press conference at 12th AG HQ, also lauding American equipment.

It was part of a full-court public relations campaign, orchestrated by Marshall, to protect the reputation of the Army in general and the Ordnance Department specifically against the charges made by Baldwin. In that sense, the figures might be considered "official", but they were never published as such in any War Department document or in the official histories after the war, nor were they ever intended for any official use such as justifying awards or decorations, in such a manner as the USAAF endorsed aerial kill claims for the purposes of creating aces and then giving those aces awards. US AGF was never authorized to do so officially (even though I suspect they envied the Airedales ability to do so) in the same way they were not officially authorized names for their equipment (something they also envied the Air Forces in).

Such claims were normally tallied internally, by the various command G-2/G-3 shops, which collated them from constituent S-2/S-3 shops, for the purpose of estimating the decline in German combat power. That was also partly the cause for the massive inflation in "claims" between the 1 April 1945 and the c. July 1945 figure, created after the Historical Section sent out its circular, which went to every HQ corps and above, and afterwards the figures were created simply by adding up all the responses. Yet again (since its already been pointed out a couple of times) do you see the problem with the figures resulting from that? Aside from the duplication, the figures then included every item of equipment surrendered by the Germans to U.S. forces (and likely every item sitting on a railcar awaiting delivery or on a factory floor awaiting completion). Anyway, all of those figures remained SECRET or TOP SECRET until the 1960s and 1970s when the NARA declassification schedule for the wartime records began and the general public could gain access to them. They weren't even mentioned in the official histories, even though they could have been, I suspect because just like the officers that compiled them, the authors of the histories realized they were problematic at best.

Anyway, the release of Patton's "figures" was a one-off thing for political purposes...if you want to extrapolate that to a systematic campaign by the Army to inflate and publicize such claims, then more power to you, but you're going to have a hard time finding evidence for that. Meanwhile, you might want to look up what Patton actually believed about the matter and what he wrote in private, when he wasn't being a team player and backing his best friend Ike (who he didn't know at the time would later "stab him in the back").

[histan]

The VIII corps alone claimed to have destroyed ~1000 "tanks" and found another 1k or so abandoned, this corps alone claims to have either destroyed or found 2k tanks. The numbers are extremely unrealistic that is why they are now withheld in the name of "research".

Let me make it absolutely clear that VIII Corps did not "claim" to have destroyed about 1K tanks and found another 1K tanks during its campaign from France to Germany

The poster knows this to incorrect and other numbers have not been given to him because he will deliberately misuse them, as he has done here.

The poster has no idea what the quoted numbers represent - how they were obtained and the statements that they contained obvious double, sometimes triple and even quadruple counting as multiple units were reporting the same tank that they had found and assessed the reason for its destruction.

At the end of the war ETO realized that it hadn't been keeping count of the amount of equipment that had been destroyed and abandoned during the campaign. Yes that's right - far from over-claiming they hadn't actually been bothered to keep a proper count!

They decided that the numbers must lie in the detailed records of the ordnance sections of the units so the asked the units to provide the.
In compiling these numbers, units were asked to provide, in a hurry and based on incomplete data, an estimate of the number of destroyed abandoned tanks that they had found when they passed through an area and the reason they attributed to the destruction.

It was recognized that since it was May 1945 nobody was enthusiastic about this task and that as the unit level estimates of what they had found were combined together by higher headquarters there would be inevitable double and more counting as more that one unit passed through an area and counted the wrecks.

Higher headquarters were combining data from units that were under their command in May 1945. Without knowing what the units were it is impossible to know how many of them actually served under VIII Corps during the actual campaign. In addition, a unit might have served under VIII Corps for most of the campaign but not be under its command in May 19445, in which case its figures would not be combined into figures produced by VIII Corps. They would be found elsewhere.

So it is absolutely clear that the numbers do not represent claims made by VIII Corps in the course of the campaign.

It is not a mistake by the poster who made that statement, he has been told on numerous occasions that the statement that these figures represent campaign claims by VIII Corps is untrue.

Continuing to make a statement, once it has on numerous occasions been proven that it is not true is not behaviour that one expects of posters on AHF

Regards

John

PS Stop whining about people keeping them a secret - go out and find them - in fact you should have found them already. Anyone is even a moderate archival researcher can find these numbers - after all I did!

PPS Talking about keeping things secret when will you provide details of tank ambushes - with tank and personnel casualties that you claim to have.

PPS Found the answer to the Rabe/Kraemer question yet

[seppw]

hope it helps,
cm

What does the graphic represent?

[critical mass]

frequency and charakter of hits over various target details based upon the WO205/1165 sample.

[seppw]

frequency and charakter of hits over various target details based upon the WO205/1165 sample.

Yeah ok that's what's already in the graph, but for what target?
A specific tank(which one?), all tanks or all AFVs?

[critical mass]

It´s the cumulative total of tank targets. A differentiation of individual AFV types was not attempted because some of the more rare target details would then quickly be lost. However, as I have the database compiled, it wouldn´t be too much trouble to add types, too, if You feel this is necessary.