German tanks in WW2. Were they really that bad?

Originally posted by ZeroKnowledge
reply to post by nake13

 

With respect,that wasn't the point,the true difference was in the quantities of tanks produced,quality needed to take a back seat at this stage in the conflict,the Germans tried to produce a quality product,but in adopting this philosophy were unable to produce enough tanks to have a serious impact on the result of the war on the Eastern front.

In 1941 Soviets had both quantity and quality advantage in tanks over Nazi Germany and it did not help one bit. Thats because tanks are just a tool ,Germany lost WW2 not because they failed to spam lower-quality tanks (they had a serious fuel problem even with "small" amounts they did produce) but because Hitler started war on two fronts.
German economy and manpower simply could not cope. Allied and Soviet economy could always build and support more hardware and field more soldiers. Nazis could not produce more low quality tanks then Allies and Soviets did,and logistics of handling larger quantities would have overloaded the straining economy even more..
Of course side with best or even most tanks/aircraft at any given time is not the side that wins wars by default. But in long WW1/WW2 type of wars bigger economies win over smaller ones, as a "natural" law.

I agree with you,but that is the bigger picture,Sure in todays wars,the ability of the personnel that are in control of the weaponry have a much bigger impact on the result than the equipment itself,but on the eastern front where both sides were essentially embroiled in a war of attrition,the most brilliant strategists would seriously struggle against the side which had the advantage in numbers,in this case tanks.

Originally posted by DarthMuerte
If Germany won Kursk, everything else changes in WWII.

I must respectfully disagree.

The Heer did not really lose the battle of Kursk ( given the massive damage inflicted on the Soviet army ) but that may just make it more obvious in what sort of dire straits the Heer was at this time. The soviet army were horribly ground down and it's immediate tank reserve ( as i remember around 800 tanks )meant to exploit a defense success' were mostly consumed in defensive fighting to prevent penetration. To lose one's reserves merely to prevent the penetration of a front you had committed to defend in such depth in my opinion shows that the Russians were still learning but learning for sure as this was in fact the first time they prevented the Heer from breaking trough during a major offensive . The Heer's casualties in the Kursk campaign were heavy , much more so in the defensive fighting after operation zitadelle, but they managed to inflict 4 casualties for every one they took, destroy assault guns at a rate of eight for every one lost and all this despite facing forces nearly twice their size.
When the Kursk campaign finally started to look like it might turn into another, if much smaller and much riskier, pocket battle German reserves had to been drawn off to meet the invasion of Sicily/Italy and to meet the now imminent Soviet offensives elsewhere. The Heer were still capable of winning seige type battles when concentrated but given the limited number of tank/mech divisions ( imo largely due to oil), to say nothing of manpower shortages, it simply failed to move these around sufficiently fast to achieve breakthroughs or prevent the Soviet army from creating dangerous concentrations of power with it's large remaining reserves of men and equipment. A Kursk type campaign in July was a serious German blunder given their manpower losses during the winter ( Stalingrad) and their only real choice that summer were to attack the Kursk salient in May or give up ground to shorten the line and go over to spoiling operations and strategic defence in general until reserves could perhaps be brought up for active late summer campaign.

More would have had to change aside from victory at Kursk. It was a hugely important battle, but Germany would still have suffered terribly at the hands of "general winter".

The Casualties the Germans took during winter were always as result of over extending the Heer, which lacked mobility much worsened with winter conditions, due the Hitlers anxiety to 'finish off' the Soviet army in the late summer instead of consolidating on shortened lines before winter set it. That being said you are quite right for despite inflicting severe enough casualties on the Soviet army to constitute a victory in itself ( the Soviet army could not sustain such casualties for many more campaigning seasons) the Heer become so unbalanced by it's choice of were to concentrate forces that subsequent Soviet offensives forced the Heer to commit it's premier and ever harder to replace Mechanized and armored formations to desperate rear guard actions. It was not the man power losses themselves that undid the Heer but the formations that suffered them created the strategic situation by which the strategic initiative now passed to the Soviet army.

Aside from that, The Germans just could not match American industry. What people just don't understand about the American war effort is that we never really even mobilized for the war. Not like other nations did.

Had the Wehrmacht managed a victory over the Red army in 41/42 ( as they IMO could have) all America's material strength would have been rather irrelevant. With a pacified Eurasia the US would have been most unlikely to soon have mustered either the means or strength to attempt a invasion of Europe or North Africa effectively preventing them from interfering as Nazi Germany took North Africa and 'liberated' India from Britain.

Without the red army's consumption of the Werhmacth's human and material assets all western allied strategy would have very likely come to naught.

Continued

We sent a scant 90 divisions between both major theaters. Compared to other nations, Americans suffered no real privation. Most of the restrictions the American population did suffer were largely symbolic in nature. Even though we out produced the entire rest of the world combined for war material, we barely scratched the surface of our available industrial capacity.

The Heer did not lose it's land battle for lack of war materials ( even thought generals never have enough anyway) and mainly lost trough lack of focus and sticking to operational models of 1941/42 when the strategic situation had change entirely. Luckily for the world Hitler never quite realised just how powerful the Heer could be if it was sufficiently informed by him or how fragile it could quickly become if it were misdirected and or dispersed against a foreign enemy as cunning as himself. He never understood the literal total power Stalin had over the Soviet Union or his own lack of power at home. Stalin could demand anything of Soviet citizens while Germans worked a 8-10 hour day until 1943....

If Hitler were willing to press Germans slightly harder or if Stalin failed to compel the soviet state machinery to keep functioning trough shear terror that war might have been over rather fast. It did not come down to who had most men or war equipment but who could compel obedience, employ terror against their own citizens/soldiers and who saw and best exploited strategic opportunity at the earliest time.

The Axis was severely "out classed" once the US entered the war.

The Axis were out classed before the US entered the war and the balance of power were not significantly shifted by it's entry as the war against it's current enemies were on the brink of being decided before the US could mount any kind of intervention. If Roosevelt did not have the guts to go against US public and decided on the Germany first strategy the Russians may never have gained sufficient momentum to do much but contain the Wehrmacht somewhere in the Ukraine......As things went 1945 saw the Soviet army very well equipped but with questionable manpower reserves... If you can imagine a scenario were the Germans do not fight land actions in Sicily, Italy and Normandy and do not lose half a million men in North Africa you might gain some idea of what things might have been like provided just that change in strategy. If fact even a factual analysis of what did happen provides such great scope for variance given slight and quite possible changes in emphasis and strategy that any larger a-historic 'what ifs' quickly result in completely different potential outcomes.

Stellar

Hi neo,

Originally posted by neo96
World War 2 tank battle was all about quantity versus quality an the Sherman's did adopt the "wolf pack" tactic because the weakest point in a German tank was the rear.

During world war II tank vs tank battles were not the norm ( neither are they today) and most tanks were destroyed by a combination of SP or towed anti tank guns, assault guns, infantry guns, artillery, mines or infantry fired anti tank guns. Obviously as tank numbers increased on all sides it become more and more important for them to be able to effectively fight other tanks as well but the reason for the later increases in German heavy tanks were primary because there were not much fuel to go around so it made sense to make heavier tanks that could outfight numerous enemy tanks rather than try to match them tank for tank and being forced to disband the Luftwaffe for lack of fuels.

The rear of any tank would only ever be vulnerable if they were operating in small numbers and trying to get behind them depended not only on your own skill and bravery but also on the enemy lacking sufficient infantry and other support to spot such moves. The Sherman was certainly not designed to fight this way and being forced to get behind the enemy to attack them was always done out of desperation rather than any design or other motive. The strength of the early model Sherman and T-34 lay in being able to be redeployed theater wide( both the Tiger and Panther formations needed trains for movement in excess of 300-400 Km) and to thus attack where there were less resistance. Wherever allied tank formations were committed against German tank formations the results were predictably bad for the allies.

The best tank of all of World War 2 by design was the T-34 wasn't the German Tiger and Panzers Hitler made the fatal mistake of being out produced.

The Germans could have produced more assault guns and Panzer IV's but it made both tactical and strategic sense to protect their better trained crews in heavier tanks while preserving fuel by having fewer engines to keep running. Given the truly massive number of T-34's tanks the Soviet army were capable of deploying it am not confident that the answer lay in more Mark Iv's which had to fight the T-34's on approaching equal footing while lacking the armor that allowed Panthers and Tigers to engage dense concentrations of 76 mm anti tank and other infantry wielded weapons. As for the T-34 being the best designed i can tell you that the Soviet tankers would rather have been fighting with Panthers and Tigers...... It's design served the Soviet army relatively well but it had serious flaws of it's own not least of which was it's four man crew.

Much like how the current military is all about the most expensive "toys" both the Sherman and the Tiger were pron to fire the biggest danger to any tank crew.

The biggest danger to any tank crew is being effectively engaged from outside the effective range of their own weapons; on that count both the Sherman and T-34 were miserable failures as compared to the Panthers and Tigers and also why aircraft and helicopters are such tank killers.

Stellar

Originally posted by ZeroKnowledge
reply to post by spinalremain

 

I do not see how the T34 is so superior to the Mark IV other than the sloping armor, which saves weight and adds slight thickness. I actually believe the Panzer IV had 80mm armor that the T34 didn't always penetrate. Why do you see the T34 as a superior piece of equipment? Speed and mobility or other things?

Compare 1941 T34 and 1941 Panzer IV. 80mm armor appeared in later models (1942-43),the same for 76mm that could fight medium/heavy tanks - in 1941 German tank had short barrel and was intented to fight infantry and was useless against T34 , and its armor in thickest front was 50mm.
In armor,armament,speed and mobility in 1941 T34 was clearly better then any German tank.

You're absolutely right. Thx

Hi Ex,

Originally posted by Ex_MislTech

Germany lost because Hitler did the following:

1) stopped bombing british airfields

May just as well say that Hitler lost because he occupied the Rhineland or that Hitler lost because he managed to become the appointed chancellor.... Without invasion Britain would always be a thorn in his side and invasion was going to be a mess any which way you looked at it. Admittedly the air campaign could have been handled differently but it is not like Dowding could not easily have lost it had he, and the RAF in general, not made so many correct decisions in the interwar years, during the defence of France and during the defense itself.

2) attacked Russia

Without a successful invasion of the British Isles his remaining options were to go full tilt after British and French North Africa trough Italy, Spain or Central Europe. Since Italy meant a sea war with no land route and few easily accessible ports taking Egypt would have been hard but also the route of least resistance and fewest new enemies. The central European route would yield most new resources but at the cost of seriously exposing his flank to the USSR, gaining allies of dubious quality ( Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia) and being forced to somehow bring the Turks to a settlement that involved overland access to British held Syria; certainly no simple task. The obvious alternative was a settlement with Franco but Franco wanted very real territorial assurances and guarantees of resources before he would be willing to close the straits to British traffic. A deal with Spain, Franco was not asking the impossible, would probably have ensured the fall of French/British North Africa but Hitler didn't like sharing the spoils of war and would rather procrastinate/gamble on the Italy.

3) sent rommel to north africa

Sending Rommel to North Africa was only a mistake insofar as it was a compromise meant to ensure that the British were not given a free hand against his incompetent Italian allies in North Africa. The fact that he failed to constrain Rommel may be argued to have been a serious mistake that led to 'early' collapse of axis forces in North Africa but it certainly needs to be argued. Given the failure to bring Franco into the fold the Italian choice ( no quick end to the Mediterranean/North African campaigns) was what was left to him given the now obvious requirement to defeat or incapacitate the Soviet Union before it could move against Nazi Germany.

4) didn't listen to his generals

Why would he give them undue credit when they were always telling him how impossible or hard campaigns would be only for him to give them marching orders and be proved correct in his estimates? He gave the generals a fair time to prove themselves if not loyal then at least honest and good advisers as to the capabilities of his armed forces but they never did give him much in the way of fair analysis ( as they did not trust him and did not want to become involved in a war against 'real' enemies) and by the time he most needed accurate advice the trust was mostly gone and the newly appointed men too compromised to risk serious disagreement when presented with the chance.

WW2 could have ended VERY differently.

Hitler was insane, and some of his choices showed it.

WWII could have ended very differently but it's outcome had little to do with the question of Hitler's sanity. Men who can rise to lead their nations ( by whichever means) and subsequently drag the world where they want to go may be said to be many things but Insanity tends to negate the acquisition of such influence. If you look at what Hitlers 'men' ( the people who knew him best) said about him it's rather obvious to me at least that he was charismatic enough to bend most to his own ends.

As for the best tank of WW2:

The T-34 was a Soviet medium tank produced from 1940 to 1958. Although its armour and armament were surpassed by later tanks of the era, it has been often credited as the most effective, efficient and influential design of World War II.[4]

It served the Soviet army well enough but it is also the type of tank they needed given the human material they had to work with... If you can not expect anything to get fixed can you make a tank that breaks down at all? Fact is that even T-34's were lost very fast and since the earlier heavier models did not fare much better there was little for the Soviets to do but mass produce what the Germans would inevitable somehow turn into all but cannon fodder. Soviet industrial capacity and strategic management allowed them a chance at success but it could have been achieved with a mass produced tank of substantially less armor/speed or armament or for that matter a slower more heavily armored one produced in somewhat smaller numbers.

But it wasn't a bad

Stellar

Originally posted by nake13

The 88 was produced in a mobile version,usually towed behind a half track,the problem with the 88 as with any artillery piece,is at some point it has to remain stationary in order for it to be able to fire,that's the time in which it becomes vulnerable to attack.

Yes I was aware of the the half truck towed option, but that's not the mobility I am talking about. I know the Germans had quite a few fine tank destroyer vehicles with 88's. If they could have incorporated a 88 in a half truck rather than towed and produced them en masse, they could have been a game changer. Germany, like with all of it's superior weapons, just could never produce them in enough quantities to make a huge difference. It was a numbers game that Germany was never going to win.

Originally posted by pavil

Originally posted by nake13

The 88 was produced in a mobile version,usually towed behind a half track,the problem with the 88 as with any artillery piece,is at some point it has to remain stationary in order for it to be able to fire,that's the time in which it becomes vulnerable to attack.

Yes I was aware of the the half truck towed option, but that's not the mobility I am talking about. I know the Germans had quite a few fine tank destroyer vehicles with 88's. If they could have incorporated a 88 in a half truck rather than towed and produced them en masse, they could have been a game changer. Germany, like with all of it's superior weapons, just could never produce them in enough quantities to make a huge difference. It was a numbers game that Germany was never going to win.

Germany did produce tank destroyers with 75,the 88 and 105 mm weapons,the same problem arose with those vehicles,i.e they had to be stationary in order to accurately fire their weapons,they could fire on the move,but tanks and tank destroyers of that era did not have the neccesary sophisticted gyro stabilisation systems and range computers that allowed for accurate targetting solutions where the attacking vehicle was in motion.

Originally posted by StellarX

Originally posted by DarthMuerte
If Germany won Kursk, everything else changes in WWII.

I must respectfully disagree.

More would have had to change aside from victory at Kursk. It was a hugely important battle, but Germany would still have suffered terribly at the hands of "general winter".

Had the Wehrmacht managed a victory over the Red army in 41/42 ( as they IMO could have) all America's material strength would have been rather irrelevant. With a pacified Eurasia the US would have been most unlikely to soon have mustered either the means or strength to attempt a invasion of Europe or North Africa effectively preventing them from interfering as Nazi Germany took North Africa and 'liberated' India from Britain.

Without the red army's consumption of the Werhmacth's human and material assets all western allied strategy would have very likely come to naught.

Continued

edit on 18-1-2012 by StellarX because: Fix quotes /spelling

Had the Wermacht made three simple changes in their battle plan for Barbarossa,they would have neutralised the Soviets within Months,i.e Hitler seriously underestimated the influence that Moscow exerted on the entire Soviet Union,had they made Moscow their primary objective and "cut the head off the snake" as it were the soviet forces would have collapsed in complete chaos without objectives/directives being issued by Moscow.

Secondly,Germany had many potential "ready made" allies within the Soviet Union who would have willingly joined them to fight against Stalin's represive rule,i.e Ukraine and the Baltic states,had Germany held back the SS from terrorising these peoples,and nurtured and supported them instead,the Wermacht would have had the potential to deploy these "friendly nations" to guard their rearmost flanks as they headed for Moscow.

Thirdly,If Army group South had not let themselves become embroiled in Stalingrad and simply ignored it and headed for their originally planned objective,the oilfields of Azerbaijan,they would have secured an invaluable fuel source outwith the German and Romanian based oil and synthetic fuel plants which were of course vulnerable to allied air attack.

Having neutralised the Soviet Union and taken control of Soviet manufacturing facilities,Germany could have taken the time to build up a fearsome land and air force which could have made an allied landing in Normandy virtually impossible,

Originally posted by nake13
Had the Wermacht made three simple changes in their battle plan for Barbarossa,they would have neutralised the Soviets within Months,i.e Hitler seriously underestimated the influence that Moscow exerted on the entire Soviet Union,had they made Moscow their primary objective and "cut the head off the snake" as it were the soviet forces would have collapsed in complete chaos without objectives/directives being issued by Moscow.

I too have read Stolfi's "Hitlers panzers east' so your preaching to the choir..... I would be the last one to accuse Hitler of not understanding the role morale, influence and other psychological factors played as can be seen by his willingness to invest so much in a land based siege of Leningrad when a naval blockade were all that was required to protect his Iron ore, and other, shipments from Sweden. Exactly the same thing happened at Stalingrad when again a siege would have been enough he wanted it captured or destroyed for just about the same reason... It is as you say surprising that Hitler could not see that Moscow presented not only the easiest target for a true decapitation of the Soviet leadership but also THE pivotal rail and industrial hub that made European Russia defensible.

It seems to me that Hitler believed that he needed to inflict massive casualties on the Soviet army, preventing them from falling back in good order to defend central and Asiatic Russia, and when the Soviet army did stand and fight he saw his chance to destroy their field armies in the first season leaving Moscow as easy prize to be taken at his leisure. Perhaps Hitlers only real mistake was in underestimating how fast the Soviet losses could and would be made good in the late summer and fall of 41' and in hoping for a regular winter instead of the coldest one in decades that he got. Fact is even with Hitlers diversion of panzer's South had the summer been a regular one there is good reason to believe that Moscow might still have been captured and destroyed as rail hub.

Secondly,Germany had many potential "ready made" allies within the Soviet Union who would have willingly joined them to fight against Stalin's represive rule,i.e Ukraine and the Baltic states,had Germany held back the SS from terrorising these peoples,and nurtured and supported them instead,the Wermacht would have had the potential to deploy these "friendly nations" to guard their rearmost flanks as they headed for Moscow.

Absolutely but we all know that it was in the Nazi regimes blood and that they were simply not going to pass up the chance to exterminate their ideological 'enemies'. It was clearly not in the the thousand year Reich's interest to start the culling so soon ( first win the war, right?) but it seems they wanted the Slavs dead so badly that waiting another few years was just too long.

Thirdly,If Army group South had not let themselves become embroiled in Stalingrad and simply ignored it and headed for their originally planned objective,the oilfields of Azerbaijan,they would have secured an invaluable fuel source outwith the German and Romanian based oil and synthetic fuel plants which were of course vulnerable to allied air attack.

What doomed army group South was the decision to split it for the summer campaign into army group A with the strongest tank elements, to pursue the capture of the oil fields in the Caucasus, and army group B to protect it's Northern flank. The mistake was in allowing the relatively weak army group B to become embroiled in the siege of Stalingrad when it lacked the means to accomplish both missions. Having said that there really wasn't much on the map to actually defend Stalingrad with so Hitler thought that it should be easy to take... Hard to know who to blame for eventually losing practically a entire fronts worth of troops over a city that was by all rights originally defenseless... The question should perhaps rather be if it would not have simpler to just take Moscow instead of risking so much to gain resources that might eventually allow for the same...

Having neutralised the Soviet Union and taken control of Soviet manufacturing facilities,Germany could have taken the time to build up a fearsome land and air force which could have made an allied landing in Normandy virtually impossible,

A neutralised Soviet Union would have meant that Japan could have moved into China in real force or a serious effort against British India.... The implications for Britain is obviously dire as the Med would have soon become impassable with Egypt and British oil soon in German hands.

Either way the Nazi's could have still 'won' the war in 1942 or at least kept the initiative in the East in 43. Without the massive German losses of Stalingrad and the ensuing late summer defeats in 43' the Invasion of France in 44 would have been all but doomed to failure.

Stellar

reply to post by nake13


Not disagreeing. I guess I really mean an 88 just mounted on a truck chassis, something so it could fire and move quickly away to reset up. Something as an inexpensive platform where they could have produced tons of them. Sort of like a TOW on a jeep. Pack a wallop for a very affordable price.

Originally posted by pavil Not disagreeing. I guess I really mean an 88 just mounted on a truck chassis, something so it could fire and move quickly away to reset up. Something as an inexpensive platform where they could have produced tons of them. Sort of like a TOW on a jeep. Pack a wallop for a very affordable price.

They were but were not considered a success because the weapon could only be used if the truck was heavily modified, not least of which meant that the bed and body of each truck had to be strengthened and suspension stiffened. This meant that the vehicle could barely move.

However about 4,000 8.8cm FlaK 36/37 were mounted on the half track which usually towed the gun. Manufactured by Krupps, Mann, Daimler-Benz and Skoda, these half tracks were also capable of carrying the much larger 12.8 cm FlaK 40. The designation was 8.8 cm Flak 18 (Sf) auf Fgst Zgkw 12t Sd.Kfz. 8.

reply to post by luxbaclos1


I figured there was a technical reason for that not happening. It seemed like the Germans over-engineered their weapons rather than going the easy to make, mass produced route.

reply to post by pavil


Yes they did. If you take the Pz.Kpfw VI or Tiger 1 for example, the first production models had the engine [a Maybach HL 210 P45] which was a massive V-12 water-cooled petrol engine and this constantly required light maintenance by the driver to prevent mechanical breakdowns.

The Maybach engine produced 650 brake horse power at some 3,000 rpm. The gearbox and transmission also made by Maybach, [a Maybach OG 40, 12, 16 A] had 8 forward gears and 4 reverse gears, but drivers were forbidden to push the Tiger's Maybach past 2,600 rpm. In the latter part of 1943, the Tiger's engine was replaced by another Maybach, the 700 bhp HK 230 P45, but this too was prone to breakdown.

In the heat of battle, it proved impossible for drivers to carry out the mechanical servicing needed to keep the heavily over-engineered engine/gearbox/transmission in tip top condition.

It was this fact and this fact alone, that caused more Tiger 1s to be destroyed, not by enemy action, but by crews destroying their broken down tanks, which were then abandoned. Incidentally, the Pz.Kpfw V Panther was little better as it too, suffered its fair share of mechanical breakdowns and was markedly more unreliable than its later brother.

Originally posted by luxbaclos1
reply to post by pavil

 

Yes they did. If you take the Pz.Kpfw VI or Tiger 1 for example, the first production models had the engine [a Maybach HL 210 P45] which was a massive V-12 water-cooled petrol engine and this constantly required light maintenance by the driver to prevent mechanical breakdowns.

The Maybach engine produced 650 brake horse power at some 3,000 rpm. The gearbox and transmission also made by Maybach, [a Maybach OG 40, 12, 16 A] had 8 forward gears and 4 reverse gears, but drivers were forbidden to push the Tiger's Maybach past 2,600 rpm. In the latter part of 1943, the Tiger's engine was replaced by another Maybach, the 700 bhp HK 230 P45, but this too was prone to breakdown.

In the heat of battle, it proved impossible for drivers to carry out the mechanical servicing needed to keep the heavily over-engineered engine/gearbox/transmission in tip top condition.

It was this fact and this fact alone, that caused more Tiger 1s to be destroyed, not by enemy action, but by crews destroying their broken down tanks, which were then abandoned. Incidentally, the Pz.Kpfw V Panther was little better as it too, suffered its fair share of mechanical breakdowns and was markedly more unreliable than its later brother.

Mechanical malfunctions certainly plagued the Maybach engined Tigers and King Tigers,as you said,it was a new design and it was installed in the panzers without too much thought for ease of maintenance,unlike the Otto diesels that were used in the Soviet T-34's which could be field repaired by almost any T-34 crew member from an agricultural background who would have been familiar with the layout of the otto from having used similar engines in their tractors.