Manoi wrote: |
note that all the women were killed. They had been instructed for AA defense but had no formation to fight against tanks. |
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I dream only about better (like in cc4 Vetmod) weapon sounds --- escpecially MG34, MP40. |
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Where did you learn that Red Army had worse weapons than Whermatch? |
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Whermatch crew loved the Tokarev PPsh for example. They also found very suitable for their tank crews the T-34. |
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And about morale, I would like to know of a large mass surrendering example of soviet troops that weren't encircled. |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
do you think they had better weapons than WH? |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
PPSh is a Shpagin design, not Tokarev . |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
They didn't find T34 suitable for the German doctrine and hence only a very little number was used by the Germans. |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
Thing is that until Stalingrad the Germans didn't surrender even encircled. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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). |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
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. |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
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. |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
Such situation remained till 1943 and by then the German tanks mostly had 80mm frontal that was impenetratable for 76mm gun even at 200m. |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
45mm AP ammo design was flawed and couldn't penetrate 50mm at even 100m. That situation remained till mid 1942. |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
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. |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
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. |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
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. |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
In 1941-43 the Germans have been shooting 2,5-3 heavy shells (>105mm) against every Soviet heavy shell. |
Dima wrote (View Post): |
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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Also, the germans had decent numbers of these |
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Source? Was it in every battle? It's arguable. The Red Army had to field ammo for the triple of guns than Whermatch. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Because of this complications, many of them were modified as flakpanzers or other kind of stuff. |
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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. |
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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'. |
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Yes Russians had better, much better, armour than the Germans. |
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The Germans simply copied the sloped armour design in their late war designs. |
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Machine guns were better suited for close combat. |
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MP40 was not as flexible and could not be easily fired from prone position. |
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Russians had vastly better industrial capacity and simple designs that could be massed produced. |
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Russians had better uniforms that were not as nice looking but much warmer and more functional. |
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Russians had better defensive tactics that had never been seen before by the Germans and their allies. |
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The Russian got up close and rendered the German blitzkreig tactics useless in house to house fighting. |
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