Germany vs SU WW2 (But no B-17s, etc))

[RichTO90]

1 minute ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I'm struggling to find his actual quote, but I'm pretty sure it was something you would have scoffed at. He did write an article in 1985 asserting they had the better army, which was bad enough.

I scoff at most of what Sir Max writes. Like most journalists he is more interested in "selling" the story than accuracy.

[R011]

14 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Hang on, did the Australians use Churchills? I thought they mainly used Matildas.

At the very end of the war, they were able to consider replacing the Lees and Matildas with something newer.  They trialed both Shermans and Churchills and found the latter superior  for their purposes.  They then ordered a bunch, some of which were delivered by the end of the war, but not enough to replace the older tanks and cancelled further deliveries.  In the early fifties, they got Cents. 

[glenn239]

4 hours ago, bojan said:

Sure, nothing sloped there.

He was referring to tank development.

[glenn239]

3 hours ago, RichTO90 said:

You would do better to put that one on ignore. Improves the ambiance of this Grate Sight quite a bit if you ignore shitposting and shitposters.

I'll let him know your comments. 

[RichTO90]

Ahh, of course, armor on tanks works differently than armor on armored vehicles.

Edited June 14, 2024 by RichTO90

[glenn239]

33 minutes ago, RichTO90 said:

Ahh, of course, armor or tanks works differently than armor on armored vehicles.

He never said that the Germans were unaware of sloped armor, he said it was not deemed as necessary for their tanks until hard lessons in Russia showed otherwise.  He was referring strictly to German tank development  in the wake of battles in Russia.  I didn't ask him about armored cars like the Sd.Kfz231, or halftracks like the Sd.Kfz251, or else the answer would have been different.   Tanks only.    

[Argus]

16 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Thanks for that. So no, it doesnt sound like they actually used them.

I was interested to note in the videos of the Australian Armour Museum, the Australian Army had a LOT of Grants, and even went so far as to modify them with anti grenade screens. They clearly anticipated using them in combat, but in the event, other than one brief battle, seem to have neglected to use them. What was wrong? Or did they just get on better with Matilda's and wanted to stick with C/S equipped ones?

The Matilda was just the better vehicle for the job. For all they'd have loved the Grant's 75mm, this was tanking IN jungle and coconut plantations, between the trees, covered in foliage. The added height was an issue, having the turret up in the canopy was not good, and there just wasn't room to compensate for the hull mounted gun.  

[Argus]

16 hours ago, Perun said:

I think that main reason why tanks wasnt used in large numberd in Pacific front was because there wasnt much tank terrain but mainly dense jungle

Dense jungle is where heavy armored support is most valuable. It's anathema to the armoured warfare enthusiasts, and not much fun for the tanks doing it, but the difference tanks make to jungle warfare is massive. 

Edited June 14, 2024 by Argus

[futon]

Tanks had a very important role in the Pacific but its usually overshadowed by Pacific naval war history and European tank battles. 

[Perun]

11 hours ago, RichTO90 said:

Because of course no one except the Soviets had realized the advantages of sloped armor? 🤣

Until when was Panzer IV produced?

[RichTO90]

41 minutes ago, Perun said:

Until when was Panzer IV produced?

Sigh...when was it designed? When did manufacture begin? What was the power of the engine? What was the weight restriction they tried to build under? Panzer IV with sloped armor would have been either heavier, or even less well armored and impossible to up armor, or would have had a smaller turret and crew.

[Perun]

@RichTO90

As war progresed it become more a and more obvious that Panzer IV had armour protection problem but they still continued to produce them.

Ok, lets sumerised this, are you still claiming that T-34 was bad design and ower all bad tank?

Edited June 14, 2024 by Perun

[old_goat]

18 hours ago, bojan said:

In which case Shermans also can not be considered trully reliable, since 10 y/o, WW2 production T-34-85s needed only as much as 30-50% more maintenance time for similar availability as did almost brand Shermans. And that is despite almost total lack of spares for T-34s and plenty of spares for Shermans.

Well, I dont really know about Sherman vs T-34 comparison, but I definitely read about user feedback from hungarian and german tankers about captured T-34s. Both explicitly noted the unreliability of the tank, especially its gearbox, clutch and steering system. Less serious, but still frequent problem was engine overheating. In post war use, problems with the same systems returned again. Earlier 4 speed gearbox (which was still used in lots of T-34/85s!) was simply atrocious. Later 5 speed was somewhat better, but still failed frequently.

18 hours ago, bojan said:

Yes, which made them need less maintenance than Shermans for similar availability and people who transferred from Shermans to T-34-85 were quite happy about that.

No surprise. It is mostly post war tech. Improved, significantly better quality radiators immediately fixed the engine overheating problems. T-34 engines in ww2 always suffered from very short service life, mostly thanks to almost completely ineffective air filters. The excellent VTI-3 filters totally eliminated this problem. Gearbox and main clutch was also improved, but more importantly, the quality went significantly up. Electrical equipment was again brand new. 

18 hours ago, bojan said:

*It is same way some people says "Tigers were reliable", by looking at availability while ignoring all the maintenance hours used for those, 2-3+ times more than needed for Pz-IV. That is called "Hangar queens" in aviation word.

Well, there are definitely people who believe that the Tiger was a super reliable tank. Thats BS in my opinion. But to be honest, their belief is not entirely based on nothing. Tigers indeed required more maintenance, but was it available all the time? The answer is no. Recently I read a lot about 1944 eastern front battles, the main point was that the germans had time for basically nothing. Constant retreats, constant moving from A to B. + also severe lack of fuel and spare parts, already in early 1944. Despite all of this, the availability of Tigers wasnt worse than other types. And they were used a LOT. So while I wouldnt go that far that the Tigers was super duper reliable, I definitely believe that it was generally a reliable tank. For Tigers (and also Panthers), main cause of loss was lack of recovery vehicles. Mechanical problems were a minority, even for Panthers. Tanks had to be blown up by own crews after getting stuck in hard terrain, or after suffering repairable battle damage, because there were no towing vehicles. And it has nothing to do with 2-3 Sdkfz.9 required for a single tank. There was simply nothing available.

[Stuart Galbraith]

10 hours ago, Argus said:

The Matilda was just the better vehicle for the job. For all they'd have loved the Grant's 75mm, this was tanking IN jungle and coconut plantations, between the trees, covered in foliage. The added height was an issue, having the turret up in the canopy was not good, and there just wasn't room to compensate for the hull mounted gun.  

The RAC used Grants in Burma, but that would seem to be rather different terrain than you guys were fighting through.

Personally, I love Matildas. Im thanksful that Australia got so many, and so many got bought up postwar to become Bulldozers, but were never converted.

 

[Perun]

[bojan]

14 hours ago, glenn239 said:

He was referring to tank development.

Yes, absolutely nothing sloped on Pz-Ia...

"Expert"

[Stuart Galbraith]

53 minutes ago, Perun said:

Entirely explicable, in that there were large communist groups in france in 1945 (many of whom had contributed to the French resistance) and in the years since, considerably less.

All of those opinion polls are wrong. Because without Britain there would have been no world war for the others to contribute to, let alone domination of the seas to transmit the supplies and weapons over. Without the Soviets gutting the Wehrmacht, there would have been no D Day, and without the Allies destroying the Luftwaffe, predominantly in the Mediterranean, neither could have advanced a damn on Germany anyway. All of them contributed significantly to the final victory. Saying this or that country was more important is frankly meaningless.

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.

[Stuart Galbraith]

16 minutes ago, bojan said:

Yes, absolutely nothing sloped on Pz-Ia...

"Expert"

I keep meaning to get that one, apparently it converts well into R/C.

 

[futon]

I found a sloped Panzer 4

 

 

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[futon]

Matilda II's were tough compact tanks. Part of their success was the Australians handling them well. Being compact was an important factor in the Pacific. Easier to ship around to the beaches.

Edited June 14, 2024 by futon

[RichTO90]

8 hours ago, Perun said:

@RichTO90

As war progresed it become more a and more obvious that Panzer IV had armour protection problem but they still continued to produce them.

Ok, lets sumerised this, are you still claiming that T-34 was bad design and ower all bad tank?

Neat, so a red herring combined with goalpost shifting and false attribution. You managed a hat trick of argumentative and logical errors! Congratulations!

No, I never "claimed" the T-34 was a bad design.

No, I never "claimed" the T-34was a bad tank.

Try again jocko.

[seahawk]

German Pz III and IV did not use sloped armour, because the design maximized protected space within a given weight limit. Which allowed it to have a gunner and a commander. If you look at the crew roles, it was the more advanced tank than the T-34. 

[bojan]

Interestingly enough "Germans copied T-34" seems to be a "western" thing from the '50/60s, I have never found that claim repeated in old Soviet sources (which had their own issues, but were still reasonable for general history of their tanks). They did not even claim "first use of sloped armor", with almost every article about sloped armor stating that FCM-36 was first one that had shell proof sloped armor and that bullet proof version was used as early as WW1 armored cars..

23 minutes ago, seahawk said:

German Pz III and IV did not use sloped armour, because the design maximized protected space within a given weight limit. Which allowed it to have a gunner and a commander. If you look at the crew roles, it was the more advanced tank than the T-34. 

This was possible due the initially quite low protection requirements, 7.9x57 AP @ 50m, which resulted in original 14.5mm armor on Pz-III and IV. Requirement was then increased to protection vs 20mm guns, which has resulted in 30mm armor in first mass produced versions (IIIe and IVc IIRC). By that point factories were set on design and any fundamental change of requirement was not possible, it was possible to uparmor those to the point, but introducing sloped armor would have required radical redesign.

Also, sloped armor had nothing to do with T-34 having 2-men crew in turret, T-50 light tank managed that w/o issues. T-34 had 2-men turret because it was evolution of BT series, which had 2-men turret. KV that was designed at the same time as T-34 had 3-men turret (with unfortunate hatch and observation devices layout, but still 3-men) because it was deep down based on T-28* evolution.

*If you want "concept advanced" look at T-28, first serial tank that combined with 3-men turret, powered turret traverse, radio in every tank and crew intercom. Also automatically rotated 6-rounds ready ammo rack and dual purpose gun with decent HE and AP performances.

Edited June 14, 2024 by bojan

[RichTO90]

16 minutes ago, bojan said:

Interestingly enough "Germans copied T-34" seems to be a "western" thing from the '50/60s, I have never found that claim repeated in old Soviet sources (which had their own issues, but were still reasonable for general history of tank). They did not even claim "first use of sloped armor", with almost every article about sloped armor stating that FCM-36 was first one that had shell proof sloped armor and that bullet proof version was used as early as WW1 armored cars..

Yep. I also find the whole "reliability" issue amusing. "Hey, I've got a great idea! Let's build an armored combat vehicle that weighs tons more than any standard civilian motor vehicle, with still immature engine technology (points, plugs, distributor caps anyone?) that we'll drive cross-country, through minor obstacles, and have an enemy banging away at it, and it'll be as reliable as any civilian vehicle of the day (which had crap reliability)." Yeah. Right.

"Reliability" for any tank in World War II - or any motor vehicle of any kind for that matter - was a combination of basic design operability and maintainability and the army's ability to maintain it. If a tank required a new transmission every 100 kilometers it was completely reliable if that maintenance schedule was kept. If another tank needed a new transmission every 1,000 kilometers it was unreliable if that maintenance schedule could not be kept.

Edited June 14, 2024 by RichTO90

[bojan]

Agree on reliability aspect, hence my thinking that only real point of estimating reliability can be how much hours and spares were used in order to keep tanks at certain availability rate while moving over certain distance at certain interval of time.  Anything else is going to give us false positives and negatives.