Re: British Tanks

The guy I knew in 10th armored division, ordnance, made it clear that
Shermans were getting smoked all over the Western front. He knew because he
was in tank recovery -- it was his job. He said the 5 to 1 ratio of Shermans
destroyed to Tigers was no exaggeration. His brother from the 90th infantry
division said the same thing. I'll take their word over yours anyday.

"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4683d851$0$12799$5a62ac22@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The claims about Tigers and Panthers killing lots of western allied
tanks for minimal losses are simply exaggerated.

The fundamental reality is the Panther was optimised to fight in
the more open terrain commonly found in the east against an
enemy that could not react quickly to new circumstances. The
fighting in Normandy was in closer terrain, costing the Panther
much of its long range advantage.

The other thing is opportunity costs, if you again assume weight
equals costs then you have 1.4 Shermans per Panther and 1.8
Shermans per Tiger. We all know the wargame situation means
the Germans should win the tank duals but the extra tanks are
rather useful because tanks did more than fight enemy tanks.
An attack supported by tanks was usually more effective than
one without armour support. Also the reliability of the vehicle
becomes important, if one takes twice as much maintenance for
example it really hurts the average available tank strength.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: British Tanks
    ... 4,500 PzV (Panther) ... 2,000 PzVI (Tiger) ... and a T-34 and Sherman around 31 tons. ... Its called the real world situation where the tanks found themselves ...
    (soc.history.war.world-war-ii)
  • Re: U S - T 34 Tank ?
    ... The answer of course is that there is no "statistics tabulating Panther ... a solution was implemented and all Sherman gun ... tanks produced after 1 January 1944 incorporated the solution. ... > penetrate a Churchill VII 152mm frontal armour. ...
    (soc.history.war.world-war-ii)
  • Re: British Tanks
    ... 4,500 PzV (Panther) ... 2,000 PzVI (Tiger) ... and a T-34 and Sherman around 31 tons. ... The panther and tiger tanks were a small proportion of the German ...
    (soc.history.war.world-war-ii)
  • Re: U S - T 34 Tank ?
    ... You have been making a claim that the Sherman was "grossly inferior" ... > I haven't seen your statistics tabulating Panther losses by ... other than that I was going from combat reports by German ... airpower was ineffective at knocking out tanks, ...
    (soc.history.war.world-war-ii)
  • Re: Interesting commentary on the UK riots
    ... Many years ago I had a long chat with a fellow who killed five Tiger tanks in the Bocage, and he commanded a Sherman tank (actually two Shermans, one was knocked out by an 88 he never even saw. ... Soviets tanks were hellishly uncomfortable, and they had lousy radios and optics. ...
    (alt.guitar.amps)