Fury Movie! Tiger vs Sherman

This thread is definitely full of CoH players who are more like CoD players than RTT players.

Play an RTT like Men of War and you'll get a better feel for how armor actually works.

1. Most tanks are killed by AT guns hitting their flanks.

2. Rocket launchers in ambush claim a great deal of tanks too

3. When 2 tank forces fight, they don't duel. They gtfo and snipe unless they're already in close combat and must engage. Humans tend to take the path of least resistance/most rational choice for staying alive. Those Sherman pileups by Jadgetigers are the result of the Germans being overrun at every turn and setting ambushes. They are from ambushes.

4. Frontal armor is hit the most. But at a rate of about 35% (from historical US army statistics). The Sherman wasn't uparmored because they realized that the frontal armor doesn't take even half the shots. A good tank has proper frontal and side armor. The panther, in a RTS game with a bird's eye view, can be microed to keep its front facing the enemy. In the chaos of war, not a chance. In a RTT, it's still very difficult.

5. Sloped armor is doubly sloped when you angle the tank. Getting a straight on shot is a rarity outside of ambush.

6. Crew is the biggest X-factor and probably the biggest factor anyway, as the Battle of France showed. Exhaustion and training make all the difference.

7. Logistics and producability are more important than fighting ability. As someone pointed out before, the USF could equip it's infantry with many more tanks and needed not horde its tanks. It's tanks could be kept on the offensive against infantry and defensive against other tanks. Meanwhile, the German tanks had to be on the offensive almost only because they simply didn't have enough tanks. The Battle of Arracourt shows how superior crew training and tanks in the defensive can defeat larger numbers of superior tanks.

8. You are all used to playing video games and need to think about how chaotic war really is. If you want a taste, and it's merely a very light taste, trying playing a game where you never use focus fire. Just attack move and a little bit of move, and where abilities are used randomly and miss all the time. People in war don't duel for K/D. They all try to survive on their own. K/D is an incidental thing that can give clues for an army's performance but is so very much tied to circumstance that it's a very rough estimate. Look at the Western Front: the allies tended to suffer about even casualties overall with the Germans

When they were not break down, and had enough fuel to move.

Its not like allied tanks never break down.....

Its not like allied tanks never break down.....

Yep, but who cares? Since Allied replaced it with 10 more tanks.

If the option is 10 guys with a shovel or 1 guy with a pistol then that seems like a pretty good choice to make for your army. As it happens, the Red Army never outnumbered the Axis 10:1, and in fact in the early stages of the war the Axis matched or even outnumbered the Soviets on that front. The significant numerical advantage comes later for the Soviets, and over that same time period we see the emergence of Tigers, Panthers, Tiger IIs and so on. While these vehicles were quite effective tactically, it's likely that the Ostheer would have performed better with larger numbers of lesser vehicles than it would have with smaller numbers of high performance vehicles. The most amazing military accomplishments of the Wehrmacht were achieved in the early years of the war and were not the result of supertanks and wunderwaffen, they were achieved with aircraft, small arms and tanks that were more or less comparable to what their opponents were fielding.

Yeah I find it funny how no one ever mentions that.... Operation Barbarossa was the greatest invasion in the entirety of human warfare.

I would love to see a movie about Second Lieutenant Audie L. Murphy, what he did was astounding.

I would love to see a movie about Second Lieutenant Audie L. Murphy, what he did was astounding.

Someone really astoundiing was Hans Ulrich Rudel a stuka dive bomber pilot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel

Hans-Ulrich Rudel (2 July 1916 – 18 December 1982) was a Stuka dive-bomber pilot during World War II. The most highly decorated German serviceman of the war, Rudel was one of only 27 military men to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, and the only person to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit goldenem Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillanten), Germany's highest military decoration at the time.[

Rudel flew 2,530 combat missions claiming a total of 2,000 targets destroyed; including 800 vehicles, 519 tanks, 150 artillery pieces, 70 landing craft, nine aircraft, four armored trains, several bridges, a destroyer, two cruisers, and the Soviet battleship Marat.[1]

Or another one would be Heinrich Severloh "The beast from Omaha beach".The infamous MG42 gunner who inflicted around 2000 casualities to the US soldiers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Severloh

This book is noted for the authors’ claim that as a machine gunner, Serverloh inflicted over 2000 casualties to American soldiers landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Subsequent to the book being published, some have referred to Severloh as “The Beast of Omaha.”

Severloh was assigned to a Senior Lieutenant Bernhard Frerking as an orderly.[8] While Frerking coordinated the artillery fire of the battery at Houtteville from a bunker, Severloh claimed he manned an MG42 machine gun.[9] He says he fired on approaching American troops with the machine gun and two Karabiner 98k rifles, while comrades passed ammunition to him until 15:00. He claimed to have fired over 12,000 rounds with the machine gun and 400 with the rifles, giving a total weight of ammunition of over 560 kilograms.[10]

I would love to see a movie about Second Lieutenant Audie L. Murphy, what he did was astounding.

There is one, Audie Murphy starred as himself.

Apparently they had to tone down his exploits in the movie because they thought no one would believe them

There is one, Audie Murphy starred as himself.

Apparently they had to tone down his exploits in the movie because they thought no one would believe them

"To Hell and back"

6. Crew is the biggest X-factor and probably the biggest factor anyway, as the Battle of France showed. Exhaustion and training make all the difference.

Agree. In 1939-1942 the French, british and soviet army had not only more but also better tanks.The Germans had win all the early battles because of better tactics and Organisation of the tank Forces. German tanks had Radio and the most important Thing a commander that only focused about what was going on on the battlefield. On the allied tanks the commander was also a reloader and therfore couldnt Focus all Attention on the battlefield. Early german tanks Panzer II - IV were terrible weak against the allied tanks from the French, brits and soviets but there were very fast and could also fast shifting around on the battlefield.

You talk about the tank that had the best death/kill Ratio of all tank designs from WW2. About 1500 build tigers destroyed more than 10000 allied tanks.

The Tiger was the most effective tank of WW2. T-34s and Shermans were death traps with terrible negative death/kill ratios compared to it.

Germany also couldnt mass produce the panther because Germany is a smaller Country with almost no natural ressources it would have never had enough fuel or steel for 20000 or 30000 Panthers.

More tanks = more steel = more fuel = more tank Crews.

Whoa. you got some facts wrong here mate. Germany is and was back then industrial hart of Europe having nearly 5 times industrial output then the soviet union with a far higher population of skilled and educated labourers. also keep in mind that Norway have huge amounts or iron ore and was under german control back then. However the industrial capabilities of germany where never utilised by the nazi's and until 1943 they maintained a peace time economy. in the summer of 1942 if you walked in a german city you would not even realise that this country was a war.

DeafMutes, the alleged Axis numerical superiority in the opening stages of Barbarossa is only true if you look at forces in presence at any given point. If you consider strength committed over the campaign, which of course is a far more telling metric, the RKKA actually (IIRC) inducted over 18 million (IIRC) personnel in 1941 alone (I'd have to check Krivosheev here), of which the vast majority served in the Western Military District, attesting to its vast losses. For comparison, over the entire course of the war, in all theaters, about 18 million men served in the Wehrmacht...

Axis forces had about 3.5 million soldiers at opening stages of Barbarossa against 2.5 million Soviet forces. (not including reserves, etc. Actual troops in theater of war like you mentioned)

Soviets didn't have numerical advantage over Axis forces until late 1942 and it was only slight advantage.

Whole notion of waves of Soviet troops overwhelming Axis forces with showels and bayonets has nothing to do with reality. The whole thing is product of Soviet propaganda about bravery of Soviet comrades and later on propaganda against Soviets by Western nations. Cruelty of Soviet regime, sending crying soldiers to die as cannon fodder. If that was true, Soviets would have losses of 100 million soldiers in 3 months and War would be over. Not saying it didn't happen at all, but only in desperate situations like Stalingrad.

Note: I deliberately mention Axis forces instead of Wehrmacht as there was 1 million Romanians, Hungarians, Croats, Slovaks, etc fighting alongside Wehrmacht forces at opening stages of Barbarossa.

1. Most tanks are killed by AT guns hitting their flanks.

THANK YOU!


Your entire post was great but I think this is one of the most important misconceptions people have.

Axis forces had about 3.5 million soldiers at opening stages of Barbarossa against 2.5 million Soviet forces. (not including reserves, etc. Actual troops in theater of war like you mentioned)

Soviets didn't have numerical advantage over Axis forces until late 1942 and it was only slight advantage.

Whole notion of waves of Soviet troops overwhelming Axis forces with showels and bayonets has nothing to do with reality. The whole thing is product of Soviet propaganda about bravery of Soviet comrades and later on propaganda against Soviets by Western nations. Cruelty of Soviet regime, sending crying soldiers to die as cannon fodder. If that was true, Soviets would have losses of 100 million soldiers in 3 months and War would be over. Not saying it didn't happen at all, but only in desperate situations like Stalingrad.

Note: I deliberately mention Axis forces instead of Wehrmacht as there was 1 million Romanians, Hungarians, Croats, Slovaks, etc fighting alongside Wehrmacht forces at opening stages of Barbarossa.

I used to be a historian dude, just saying, so maybe we can proceed without shovels and propaganda and whatnot.
Now, as for numerical strenghts: The Axis superiorty during Barbarossa again only holds true only if you look at forces in presence, not at forces committed, which of course is far more meaningful. Point being: The Soviets had vast, more or less trained reserves at their disposal which enabled them to mount massive, multi-army counterattacks even during Barbarossa and endure the utterly lopsided casualties resulting from the German operational successes and still the maintain a credible force ratio. BTW, even in the first metric, the Soviets archieved parity not at the end of '42, but during the winter of 41/42, all the while possessing a huge advantage in material, to include tanks, artillery, and aircraft...ie., the Soviets lost 20 500 AFVs in '41 along, incidentally leading to the situation where the most favourable ratio in terms of equipment ever possessed by the Axis was during Unternehmen Taifun, ie. the late '41 push on Moscow.

Now, as for numerical strenghts: The Axis superiorty during Barbarossa again only holds true only if you look at forces in presence, not at forces committed, which of course is far more meaningful.

Is it really though? Isn't the double echlon system used in the RKKA uptil late 1942 one of the main things that caused them to be inefficient for the simple reason that they never could put the weight behind their attacks? Maybe i just got the terminology mixed up.

Is it really though? Isn't the double echlon system used in the RKKA uptil late 1942 one of the main things that caused them to be inefficient for the simple reason that they never could put the weight behind their attacks? Maybe i just got the terminology mixed up.

Nah, a "lack of weight" certainly was not a Soviet problem in 1941. Again, the Soviets mounted counterattacks on a multi-army scale during Barbarosssa that actually dwarfed anything they did until Operation Bagration in mid-1944.
The double echelon system, if you wanna call it that (the Germans, btw, had a rough analogue, Feld/Ersatzheer) was an institutional necessity, ie. an establishment to build and train new formations, integrate replacements, etc., something that was even more pressing given that the RKKA lost formations, trained personnel and therefore military expertise wholesale on an alarming level during Barbarossa. Now as to the why of Soviet numerical superiority, the Stalin-era Soviet Union had a larger demographic pool from which to draw its Soldiers, and was perhaps also the most thoroughly militarised state in modernity (ie. the Soviets allocated 43 % of their budget on defence in prewar 1941) They also managed to mobilise virtually the entire population for the war effort, and that in conjunction with its large demographic base was the main reason for its survival in 1941, as they could afford to suffer a very disproportionate amount of casualties but still maintain close-to or numerical parity in the field at any given time. Ie., the Germans (excluding their Allies, but this is not making a meaningful statistical impact) lost suffered roughly 860 000 casualties (Heeresarzt) during 1941 compared to 4,47 million Soviet casualties (Krivosheev). Nonetheless, at the end of the year, the Axis had not managed to improve the force ratio significantly.
Now, for terminological clarity: Forces in presence means the forces available at any given particular state, ie, at June 22nd, the WMD of the RKKA numbered a total of about 2,9 million men, compared to 3,6 million Axis soldiers (of whom 3,05 million were Germans), giving in turn, a force ratio of slightly better than 1,2 in the favour of the Axis. Forces committed refers to the forces mobilised over a certain timeframe.

The Tiger tank was not produced because of the t-34 but because the Germans wanted a breakthrough tank to attack enemy positions that where well defended by enemy anti-tank guns. Neither the Soviet or American most commonly used anti-tank guns had sufficient penetrative ability to penetrate the Tigers armour from the front unless they used rare special ammunition. In battle this meant that the Tigers lead the way and were the first to engage the enemy anti-tank guns instead of letting the Panzer III and Panzer IV suffer heavy casualties attacking dug in anti tank guns.

The Soviets made the KV-1 and the IS-2 for the same reason. The Tiger tank performed its role on the battlefield. Something many people forget to consider is how many t-34s were saved because IS-2s routed German pak crews fled when they realised their shells simply bounced off the IS-2 and that the big powerful 122mm HE shells were going to rain down upon on them. Heavy tanks were more expensive but they also destroyed more enemy equipment and kept their crew alive so in many ways it was worth it.

In ww2 combat showed that a specialist breakthrough tank was needed and the heavy casualties Shermans suffered to pak 40s (biggest killer of US tanks) the weeks after D-day could have been avoided if the United States of America had a breakthrough tank. The greatness of US artillery helped the US Army but artillery bombardment always left plenty of surviving hidden paks alive who were able to defeat US tanks and without direct supporting fire from tanks US attacks often failed leading to the Americans being stuck not far from the beaches for a long time despite having complete dominance in both the skies, numbers and in artillery.

I saw this movie. It could have been ok but the final battle is bullshit. 5/10

Even old Polish serie "Four tank-men and a dog" have more realism.

TL

Well yes the Soviets ability to mobilize manpower (for use in army and other sectors) was something the Germans never had, and a big part of winning the war. You aren't the only one who has studied history at an academic level (although I did switch to archaeology after just a couple of terms)

Thanks for clearing up the terminology, I was way off on my reply then.

Anyway I was referring to a more tactical level and the problem when looking at numbers at a purely operational or strategic level. And that the soviets insistence of dividing up attacking divisions into two regimental echelons meant that even if on paper can look like a soviet division of 6 000 fighting men attacking a german division of 4 500 fighting men where numerically superior. (and ofc in a way it is). But on the ground this could be a whole different matter.

I took your terminology "forces in presence" as in units engaged with the enemy at the tactical level and "forces committed" as all units committed to that objective, regardless of whether they where in at the front or part of the second regimental echelon.

In ww2 combat showed that a specialist breakthrough tank was needed and the heavy casualties Shermans suffered to pak 40s (biggest killer of US tanks) the weeks after D-day could have been avoided if the United States of America had a breakthrough tank. The greatness of US artillery helped the US Army but artillery bombardment always left plenty of surviving hidden paks alive who were able to defeat US tanks and without direct supporting fire from tanks US attacks often failed leading to the Americans being stuck not far from the beaches for a long time despite having complete dominance in both the skies, numbers and in artillery.

It was the terrain of the Bocage country that kept the Americans from breaking through in Normandy. Having a specialist heavy tank wouldn't have mattered when it would have just ran into the next series of hedgerows. Once the Americans hit open country where it could utilize its numerically superior armor and air power, it was a straight shot to the Rhine. Only thing stopping them from going further was that they outrun their supply.

It was the terrain of the Bocage country that kept the Americans from breaking through in Normandy. Having a specialist heavy tank wouldn't have mattered when it would have just ran into the next series of hedgerows. Once the Americans hit open country where it could utilize its numerically superior armor and air power, it was a straight shot to the Rhine. Only thing stopping them from going further was that they outrun their supply.

The terrain around Caen where the Commonwealth forces primarily operated was fairly open by Western European standards, but the British did not make any more headways initially than the US did. Actually, while the Bocage certainly does complicate any and all operation by large formations, it is extremely hard to defend - poor visibility, necessity to concentrate strongly on the front, therefore, comparatively short divisional frontages etc.. The hedgehog-defence approach of mutually supporting strongholds with mobile reserves which served the Germans well on the Eastern front even late in the war had no applicability in Normandy terrain. Anyways, the major reason for the eventual Allied success in Normandy was simply that they managed to shift the force ratio ever more into their favour and overall winning the attritional battle. German forces were badly undersupplied, increasingly undermanned, and could hardly operate by daylight thanks to Allied airpower. By the time of the breakout, the Allies enjoyed a numerical superiority in excess of 3:1, and this was far more marked in terms of material. The eventual, fairly inevitable German defeat in Normandy was aggravated by the inflexibility of German command, who misappraised their situation and tried to hold on for far too long, not in the least of course because of political pressure.

[...]

I took your terminology "forces in presence" as in units engaged with the enemy at the tactical level and "forces committed" as all units committed to that objective, regardless of whether they where in at the front or part of the second regimental echelon.

Ah ok, I misunderstood you there.