Well in that case Flak 37 is clearly superior to Pak 40, because I've just read in "Germany's Tiger Tanks - Tiger I and II: Combat Tactics" by Jentz, Thomas L. that Flak 36 and KwK 36, had these specs with AP and APCR respectively: 110mm@500m@0º and 156mm@500m@0º.
Well it depends on the shell and range. Flak 37 has more effective range and pierces more in long distances. But in 500m, as was it the standard tank battling distance, only with normal AP is the Pak 40 superior to Flak 37.
Pak 40 pierces at 500m: + 132mm with AP + 154mm with APCR
Flak 37 pierces at 500m: + 110mm with AP + 156mm with APCR
I read that the 88's, so long as they were intact, a position was never lost.
jeje, check the combat history of III.Flak-Korps in Normandy.
You're right Dima.
There is a punctual action performed by canadian paratroopers where two small mortar guys infiltrated into a 88's den some kilometers east of Bayeux and while running forced their surrender firing their mortar in point blank shooting style. The gun was intact, but the krauts surrendered.
88 Flak 37 was a superb and versatile gun. Still too high profile and weak HE shell (or not... comparing with the D-25T for example). Even though these, there were too few, they were widely spread and their crews weren't top class in most cases.
Seriously, AT camo in CC isn't such as you point out NeOmega. Dima can tell I'm used to argue everything, but seriously, if someone fire 2 or 3 rounds to a panther in CC4 without killing the tank, most of the time, that AT gun is dead. And as Dima pointed out, there are ways to conceal a medium gun. Krauts were specialist in such duties.
again, the battle of Stalingrad was decided on flanks and if there was no big counter attack of the Stalingrad front in September 1942 the city would be cleared in September.
4th Panzer Army was situated in 6th Army southern flank during November 1942 and they were coped and forced to withdraw.
ahha, that's probably why S.Timoshenko has sent a request to Stalin asking for the evacuation of the city on July 17th.
Well, you already pointed out that fighting for the city, wouldn't affect the war in any way. RA only had to wait german drive to cease from self starvation and then exploit their own drive. Rommel did the same with desert rats twice.
again, if there were no counterattacks of the Stalingrad front that were forcing the German to keep the strongest and most combat effective units north of the city there was no Pavlov's house or other places in Stalingrad remained in the RA hands.
But you are telling me that one just have to skip from existence the guys that held the strongest german units north to allow these units attack Pavlov's house? Wouldn't RA defend with more troops those buildings then?
If you think about military actions that way, then France wouldn't suffer such a quick defeat if Guderian's drive through Ardennes never occurred.
Doing so, they would have been able to clear out RA arty, and hold valuable bridgeheads. They should have done some with Don river bridgeheads. Crossing these rivers would have prevented Uranus from being such effective.
where did I tell that RA tanks and guns were so horrible in late 1942?
Without need of quoting, you just said that F-34 gun wasn't good even for piercing a Pz38t frontal plate, and that the T-34 tank did not solve it's mechanical problems until 1943. So I assume that you told so for 1942 tanks and guns too.
But anyhow the Stalingrad battle was fought and won/lost on flanks where the Germans had the best units and the RA was counter attacking every other week.
Well, 4th Panzer Army had to withdraw (some unfortunate guys got encircle though) during Operation Uranus. But the Stalingrad failure is beyond Uranus. I already told, that Fall Blau already failed by mid July. During the attack over Voronezh, 4th Army failed to encircle the whole 1st Ukranian Front. Only 40th Army got encircled. In Fall Blau directives, it was explicit that the whole Front should be captured or destroyed to allow Whermatch a 500 km drive with uncovered flank. Also Whermatch failed to capture most of bridgeheads along the Don. This was key also. The truth is that Whermatch strenght after Operation Typhoon was lesser than the actually needed by.
In the city itself the German could thrust to Volga in 1 day and after that they were fighting reinforcements crossing the river and actually they could not get to Volga fully as there was huge number of arty/ATG/tank pits firing directly from the East bank. I wonder if they actually needed it as the river as supply route was effeciently cut and fully covered by the German fire.
What about Pavlov's House and Tractor Factory? What about worker's apartments? 6th Army never controlled them fully. These key buildings were the ones that prevented Stalingrad fall. They were few, yes, but they were key. The germans never gained a strong enough bridgehead to cross the Volga. That's a fact, and that's why RA arty could play havoc from eastwards. Hoth's 4th Army was probably the best Panzer Army in the whole front at that time, and it was unable to cross the Volga south of Stalingrad due to RA resistance. Maybe RA tanks and guns weren't so horrible as you think.
For information of armchair-generals-who-know-it-all and for whom small arms win battles - Stalingrad (besides narrow 100m(?) line along Volga) was in the German hands till surrendering of AOK.6 in January 1943. And somehow stupid russkies who knew that they had a huge advantage in CQB due to their small arms didn't even dare to counter attack in the city in November....
I've never said that small arms win wars, or that street combat is essential for success. Only pointed out that you minimized PPSh's effect in easter front, and that in small arms combat, usually the RA was better suited. One good example of what I mean si Tula. Tula itself, was really necessary for Guderian's drive on Moscow. GDIR managed to conquer half of the city in less than a day (same as Stalingrad), but a lone 4 story brick apartment store behind an anti-tank trench stalled Gross Deuschtland advance. Outside the city, 2nd Panzer Army nearly encircled 156th NKVD Regiment, 732nd AA Regiment and 260th Rifle Division that were helping Tula's garrison inside. An attack from the 32nd Tank Brigade consisting in 5 KV-1, 7 T34, 22 T60, and 960 men from it's Rifle Batallion cleared the zone, while city's defenders where fighting GDIR.
So the whole 2nd Panzer Army got stopped by a single Rifle Division with help of two regiments and a single tank brigade.
Even though that by December 1941 2nd Panzer Army strenght was decimated, statements from Eberbach consider battle strength for the kampfgruppe that was ordered to attack Tula adequate for the task. They attacked on the morning of the 30th November with a conglomeration of 55 Panzer II and III tanks, formed into basically 2 Battalions, one from each regiment, supported by what was probably (although exact number were not given) a couple of companies from the Panzer Grenadier regiment (3rd) of the 3rd Panzer Division mounted in half tracks, and then a portion of the Grossdeutschland regiment mounted on trucks. (I'd guess about a very weak BN worth). It also said the Russians had at least some 45mm AT guns to go along with the 37mm guns from the 732nd AA regiment, which did a pretty good number on the German HT's and PZII's, along with knocking out a few PZ III's as well.
This simply cripple your statements about PzIII specs against small caliber soviet AT Guns.
Sources from "Moscow 1941: Hitler's First Defeat" by Robert Forzcyk and "Panzer Leader" by Heinz Guderian.
And Operation Typhoon is indeed THE most decisive operation of the whole war for Whermatch. It dictated an after and before for the fate of III Reich.
If someone study carefully Whermatch's real chances of a victory over allies, then one is amazed with such success they obtained. They crushed France, drove "desert rats" to egypt, decimated Royal Marine with submarine warfare an put Soviet Union in check. This achievements aren't even thinkable considering Whermatch real strenght in 1940.
Re this mod, with full respect to the mod makers, imho I find the mod unplayable for good H2H GCs because it is so heavily weighted in favour of the germans. Ruskies stand no chance in the GCs I've played. It seems to me that something must be amiss because stalingrad would surely have been lost to the germans if things were this way in reality.
German doctrine and training was superior. Also german doctrine expected a large city like Stalingrad to be bypassed, not fought house-to-house. Still, I'm of the opinion that 'Fall Blau' was already a failure when 4th Panzer Army failed to encircle the vast majority of Red Army around Voronezh. They captured the city but not the guys... the same guys that months later encircled 6th Army.
Still I think same as you, especially in weaponry, Red Army is in general underestimated in most of WWII games or films. It's weird that are actually the germans' films and statements the ones that take really estimate soviet weaponry.
Then Dima will appear again stating negative to this, but I believe as you, that if the Whermatch would have been so powerful and better armed than Red Army, then would have won. He denies the fact that the PPSh was more effective than MP40 in close combat, but the truth is that Red Army almost won every significant street combat scenario. Examples are Tula, Rostov (twice), Stalingrad, 2nd Minsk, 2nd Kiev.
As I said before: doctrine, morale, tactic discipline and officers are more important than which weapon or which scenario.
Well, Blitzkrieg doctrine does consider that last fact, and that's why in the manual, towns and cities are supposed to be left behind forming "kessels". The Whermatch didn't always follow the manual in practice, and that's why some soviet cities ended being Verduns.
Then, not every soviet tactic was superior. Figure Model's and Heinrici defensive tactics from early 1942 to mid 1944 in Byelorussia. Army Group B deflected 2 massive soviet attacks (1941-1942 winter soviet counter-attack and then Operation Mars during the summer 1942). During 1943 the Red Army tried the front again several times, without success. These attacks, especially Mars, involved more men, tanks and aircraft than Operation Uranus (soviet counter-attack in the low Volga and Caucasus). The Army Group B halted all of them, most of the time with less than 1k of tanks and with shortages of all type.
T-34 in 1941 was same or less reliable as Panther D. In average it was taking T-34s to drive 300-400km to get fatal engine failure.
I'm aware that was due to oil shortages. The engines were in constant overheat. Finally the metal melted. The germans had a similar problem in Operation Spring Awakening, where they lost some tanks to engine overheat, some others to fuel starvation, before they reached battle.
Due to critical shortage of 76mm AP ammunition the main AT ammunition was HE and cannister set on impact that made all the German tank with 50mm frontal armor virtually impenetratable for the RA 76mm guns.
Well Dima, it was a logistic problem, not a flaw of the gun. German 50mm L60 could not penetrate 50mm frontal armor with HE either. Even, it's proved that frontal armor is not all in tank vs tank battles. Positioning, rate of fire, and skillful aiming are more important, and the german crews were better than soviet in this because of their doctrine.
Such situation remained till 1943 and by then the German tanks mostly had 80mm frontal that was impenetratable for 76mm gun even at 200m.
That's not true. The muzzle velocity of F-34 gun was 680 m/s. Maybe it could not penetrate an 80mm plate in 60º, but definitely was able to penetrate an 80mm plate in 90º from 500m. Pz kpwg IV had an 90º plate in the front. If you look at the spec of the BR-350P model of the gun, it states that it can penetrate 90mm at 90º from 500m.
I think that by 1943, only the Tiger was invulnerable from the frontal plate to soviet medium tanks, so was the IS-2 for german medium tanks in 1944.
45mm AP ammo design was flawed and couldn't penetrate 50mm at even 100m. That situation remained till mid 1942.
Yes, T-26 and BT-7 were obsolete. Still, some german Panzer Division fielded Pz-II and Pz-35t obsolete tanks with certain success due to their doctrine and crack crews.
The German tanks circa 1941 were absolutely fit in the Blitzkrieg doctrine. And with a 50mm frontal armor even Pz38t was a die hard for most of the RA AT weapons.
Like the 76mm AT gun? This gun had the same logistic problem that had T-34, but it's specs clearly allow it to blow the shit out of a Pz 38t.
German tanks fitted Blitzkrieg doctrine for the first phase of a common attack. They were fast, mechanically good, well gunned against infantry and fielded a radio. But when the "kessel" was closed, this tanks had to continue their drive further, having also to form an exterior ring. If they were charged by T-34s or KV-1s tank that intended to open the "kessel" they were in trouble as they were no match for this kind of tanks. They lost many tanks this way.
German Panzer losses in 1941 (without counting Pz kpwg I): 558 tanks (112 Pz kpfw II, 182 Pz Kpwg 38t, 155 PzKpfw III and 109 Pz kpwg IV) in July, and 429 tanks (104 Pz kpwg II, 183 Pz kpwg 38t, 74 Pz kpwg III y 68 Pz kpfw IV) in august.
Then, while on defensive, they only lost 325 tanks (70 Pz kpwg II, 102 Pz kpwg 38t, 113 Pz kpwg III y 40 Pz kpwg IV) in december.
source: Horst Boog et al, Germany and the Second World War: Volume IV: The Attack on the Soviet Union, (Oxford University Press, 1999) pp. 1120-1122.
And these situations during german drives, often force infantry to fight close quarter against soviet armor, determining great losses for both sides, but unrecoverable for Whermatch side.
In comparison to T-34 or KV, PzII/III/IV were reliable working horses in 1941 with little or no teething problems and great autonomy. Actually PzIII was one of the best tanks that time and influenced further versions of T-34.
Yes Pz kpwg III was a good tank, I've never said that german armor was worse than soviet, I've said their were balanced, with pros and cons from each side. T-34 on the other side, inspired some Pz kpwg V features.
why is that? Flak18/36 was an ad-hoc solution until proper ATG was developed and issued in masse - Pak40- and it had weak HE shell to be real artillery. Very high silhouette and very vulnerable even to mortars.
Range (for a relatively small caliber)? Rate of fire? May be HE power and silhouette don't mind a lot when you have a one hit knock out gun for any enemy threat. This gun caused havoc in american infantry men during Hurtgen's hell an so did against soviet armor. All this without considering it's great capability to defend the skies. Also, the germans had decent numbers of these.
do you have any sources for that? when in October (?) 1941 Guderian was asking for more tanks to attack further, GHQ offered him to use hundreds of captured Soviet tanks but he refused asking for more German tanks.
I don't remember where, but I've read that following battle of Brody, a column of the 8th Panzer Division, fielding 2 T-34/76mm on the lead, captured a bridge over Dnieper river in a nightly infiltration. Then I've read about a heavy street combat in Rostov, in fall 1941, where a captured T-34 was involved and destroyed 3 soviet tanks.
Guderian intended a drive on Moscow in August. According to acthungpanzer.com the firsts Panzer Divisions to field the T-34 in small numbers were 1st, 8th and 11th, all in Army Group South, not under Guderian command, and it was in that August. So I believe there weren't more T-34 ready for battle (you have to give the tank ammo also, which was different from any produced by III Reich) in that time. I always thought that Guderian rejected undergunned tanks like T-26 or BT-7 mostly. You also have to think about the fact that germans would have to add a radio to each one before usage.
Because of this complications, many of them were modified as flakpanzers or other kind of stuff.
Aside from this, there are three very good quotes from protagonists in the struggle:
"We had nothing comparable", Major-General F.W. Mellenthin, Chief of Staff of XLVIII Panzer Corps.
"The finest tank in the world", Field-Marshal Ewald von Kleist, First Panzer Army.
"This tank (T-34) adversely affected the morale of the German infantry", General G. Blumentritt.
I already told you that Pz kpwg IV J or Pz kpwg V G may have been better in some aspects, but T-34 certainly was a very good tank and had it's advantages over it's enemies'.
No, in fact I think the thing was pretty balanced, excepting in fighters squadrons. Me-109 in all its variants, and especially the 'k' model, is usually elected by most of the contend's participants as the best fighter due to it's all round capacities that made a high altitude fighter still a match for it's opponents in low altitude. The 'k' model also stood as an excellent fighter vs flying fortresses. So the low altitude soviet fighters didn't even have a chance, especially due to the fact that Me-109s dived on them with ease and pace most of the dogfights.
But taking apart fighters, the soviet air force did have long range level bombers, and had a strong but lacking doctrine tactical bomber force. They also had numbers in the air, and their AA Flaks were decent. Their doctrine and organization in AA warfare was in my opinion adecuate, and proof of that are Luftwaffe failures in dominating skies late in 1941.
Speaking about armor and especially blitzkrieg based armor, the Whermatch never had a good match until mid 1944, and they didn't have enough numbers, as in 1943 the 2k Pz Kpwg V D and A produced by their industry had well known mechanic problems. Only the G model proved mechanically reliable, and there were only other 2k produced against what? 80k T-34s of all types. An also, comparing Pz kpwg V G with T-34/85mm we will have a hard time to decide which one was superior. The T-34 had it's advantages in angular plates, weight, height, and grip.
Then if you want to compare contenders in heavy armor, the IS-2 was a really good tank, well armored, very well gunned despite it's poor rate of fire and its autonomy and pace were superior to german Tiger tanks. There are of course many cases were one would like to be sitting in a Tiger than in a IS-2 (especially in ambushes or above a hill with good fields of fire), it's rate of fire was terrifying for Whermatch's enemies. But the IS-2 was much more suited to blitzkrieg than an ambush tank like the Tiger. As Whermatch got on dedicated defensive in late 1943, the Tiger found itself in it's proper scenario, and that's why Tiger's crews had such kill rates. The tank was doing the job that it was designed for.
Then artillery. Both armies had it's strongs. 88mm piece was probably the best all rounder artillery piece in warfare history, but high caliber soviet artillery and Katyushas had their strong points also. Soviet artillery doctrine and preparation was decent, despite I think that german understanding of barrages and especially understanding of how to defend against a heavy barrage (here I mean especially Heinrici's tactics) was superior. Again doctrine but not the weapon.
They didn't find T34 suitable for the German doctrine and hence only a very little number was used by the Germans.
Yes they did. Little numbers are for an obvious reason: the tanks were captured. There are a lot of evidence of T-34 successful usage of Whermatch, especially in Barbarossa's early days (the only timeline there were massive T-34 captures).
Thing is that until Stalingrad the Germans didn't surrender even encircled.
I may argue situational environment inflicts a great deal in your point. Red Army had huge losses in late June and July (so the Whermatch considering it's smaller force, especially in armor -600 tanks approximately-), and they didn't have a suited force pool available for a sustained offensive maneuver until late 1941. So after those losses, encircled soviet troops in Byelorussia and Ukraine wouldn't be rescued for months (worse than Stalingrad, where before a month of encirclement, 6th Army could have escaped).
German pockets after the soviet counter-attacks of winter 1941-1942 are a good example for crippling my arguments, but the truth is that excepting Demyansk (where terrain favored a lot the defenders), all of them didn't last more than a month or so. And Army Group A didn't suffer such losses of Army Groups B and C and was in condition to assemble a task force for the rescue.
On the other hand I thing everybody knows that in a certain point, when encircled without hope of relief, surrendering is not a choice but a consequence. If the soviet army really had a lack in morale, Operation Typhoon would have been a success as they should have been so demoralized after their great losses of Barbarossa. And they stood on the ground and fought the invader to the death.
I think that speaking of bravery or weapon quality both did a great job, with pros and cons.
Only two things turned the tide for one or other side: german military doctrine (even when 1941-1942-1943 Whermatch equipment was not good for it -especially their trouble to close the exterior ring of kessels-) and soviet huge industry (supported by americans also) and manpower. I'm also of the opinion that even when Whermatch was sure to lose against Red Army at some point, american intervention in war accelerated that a lot. I don't see Model's Army Group B being overwhelmed in the way it was during Operation Bagration without it's best men traveling to France for the battle of Normandy.
Yes, their doctrine and "modern equipment" was really disappointing early on. Even though they learned the hard way and suited their equipment later on, for a more modern style, some german commanders still had some aces under their sleeve, and that's why guys like Manstein, Model or Hoth still found ways to cripple huge soviet offensives in Kharkov, Orel/Bryansk and Narva river. Even Guderian, in late 1944 managed to halt Bagration before the Red Army got a safe cross on the Vistula. If it weren't for the great understanding of armor tactics that had the most of german commanders, the soviets would have reached Berlin before Christmas 1944.
Where did you learn that Red Army had worse weapons than Whermatch?
Whermatch crew loved the Tokarev PPsh for example. They also found very suitable for their tank crews the T-34. Then about training and morale, it's also arguable. Soviet crews usually received enough training, but their commands were less modern than Whermatch commanders in military doctrine. This lack of understanding of Blitzkrieg early in the war, earned the Red Army a reputation of "bad trained crews", but the reason was the doctrine, not the training.
And about morale, I would like to know of a large mass surrendering example of soviet troops that weren't encircled.
Maybe it's a warning from fate... Keeping the Führer happy usually ended up in hedgehog kessels against soviet encirclement for most german commanders!
I'm not sure about stereotypes like "muslims are mean" or "christian people burn out anybody who thinks different". "Mean Muslims" usually have political or economical reasons to send fanatics to bomb other people, and it is the church the institution that organized the barbecue of "witchery". The individual is not "mean" by itself, not even muslims as acebars tells. The masses are great for encouraging lots of people to do bad things. Wich religion is not a problem, the problem comes when lots of people decided over other that his religion is right and that the people who do not think like them has to be burned, bombed, killed, etc.
Well I spoke with clear arguments, maybe you need to read about how did USA help URSS during WWII and see if they didn't outmatch de rest of the world.
And the casualties I've quoted can be corroborated here:
Horst Boog et al, "Germany and the Second World War: Volume IV: The Attack on the Soviet Union", (Oxford University Press, 1999) pp. 1120-1122
I'll also leave you a chart from: David M. Glantz, "The Soviet-German War 1941-1945: Myths and Realities: A Survey Essay" (Clemson University, South Caroline, 2001), p. 14
Now face the FACTS and not the useless chatter.
German "Barbarrossa" offensive was stalled already by mid July by heavy armor loses in Ukraine, as Kiev's resistance forced Heeresgruppe Mitte to head south to aid Heeresgruppe Sud instead of heading for Moscow.
AND THAT HAPPENED BEFORE WINTER ONSETS
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