Oh wow, I just noticed another peculiarity.
Kenny with his:
The other critical issue at the heart of this whole debate that the author fails to directly address is that the Germans in 1943-44 had a crappy and dishonest reporting system for unit Panzer strength. They did not make any attempt to dis-aggregate the status of non-operational tanks based on combat damage vs. non-combat mechanical problems. I do not agree with the quote from Friedl’s book on p.23 that this was simply due to local commanders trying to shield their stash of tanks from the prying eyes of Berlin bureaucrats. The whole categorization system of “Total loss/short-term/repair/long-term repair” is a system-wide problem on all the fronts in 1943-44 and 1944. This reporting system is very different from the more honest and clear one used in 1939-40. I am not sure whether it was done deliberately to hide combat casualties or was simply incompetent. I have never seen an adequate explanation for the system, and the reporting system seems to be taken at face value in many sources such as Zetterling. The problems of the reporting system are evident in looking at German Panzer loss reports for France in the summer of 1944 where Panzer losses in June, July and August are unbelievably low and then suddenly in September, they write off most of the Panzer inventory in one fell swoop.
Seems to know exactly where the pages of the book speculating about how Brits did exactly the same thing as germans with delayed write-offs are.
Why am I not surprised.