Tanks
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Sorry for the delay...
I'm going to give my subjective opinion on this. The hassle with comparing WWII armour is unreliable reports, biased fanboys, and in some cases the tanks themselves being let down by manufacturing techniques.
As you'd expect by now from me, it's gonna be a long (12,000+) post.
So bottom line up front, You're almost on the money. US Shermans and T-34s were the ultimate mass-produced tanks and German armour (especially Tiger) suffered massively from 'add moar things'. Shermans were (as far as I've read) built to be very reliable. T-34s, not so much initially but were so simple that they're like AK-47s with tracks. German firepower was shit until they mounted an 88 millimetre AA gun on a heavy tank and from then on they ruled the roost with big sticks.
During Early Blitzkrieg, the Germans actually had shit tanks. Having had to start from scratch only a few years beforehand, most of the home-grown stuff was massively inferior to the French and British armour in France at the time. What helped Guderian and co. was superior tactics, combined arms warfare and a healthy influx of Czech tanks.
That trend continued right through the expansion of the Reich, especially East. The disparity between German and Soviet Armour and tactics in 1940 was ridiculous.
The USSR had far superior tanks, and more of them.
KV series tanks (the ones with the big turrets) proved basically invulnerable to just about anything in the German armoury. There's stories of KVs being hit with literally hundreds of direct impacts from Pz III and short Pz IV and just sitting there laughing.
And lets not get started with the T-34. It was immune to PaK 37mm guns at point blank range and the 50mm guns didn't fair much better. It was so much better than anything the Germans were using that the reports read like comedy sketches with individual T-34s (probably with the Benny Hill soundtrack blaring from speakers) being engaged by entire anti-tank battalions without damage or one running over a PaK 37 gun carriage, swatted a pair of Pz IIs and wandered so far into the German rear area that he was eventually brought down by artillery fire 14 kilometres behind the lines. My only assumption is the artillery was literally engaging him on open sights, being that far back behind the lines.
Back then, the only worries they had was being nailed by Luftwaffe Stukas or large calibre artillery being used in direct fire roles, particularly 105 howitzers and 88mm anti aircraft guns.
But all their best commanders had been gulag'd, they were using flags to communicate between tanks, whilst tactically and strategically they were in the dark ages.
And, the early models suffered from Russian build quality. Until the T-34-85, nearly the only modifications allowed were ones that made it easier to make and more were lost due to breakdowns and lack of recovery assets than enemy fire.
In contrast, back then the Kraut armour were designed for Blitzkrieg and could drive across countries whilst being properly supported, well-trained crews with the best tactics, proper radio communications and a 'stop for nothing' attitude. The German mobile warfare combined tanks, intimate close air support and the best commanders in the world into one sweet package that has been copied ever since.
They just lacked firepower.
Until someone looked at the 88/L56 anti-aircraft gun, looked at its combat reports, looked back at the gun and said 'Well, it's capable of killing any enemy tank at any real engagement distance, but its a pain in the ass to tow around on a gun carriage'. And the guy next to him said 'well, lets mount it on tracks then'.
The Tiger was born.
And from that moment on, the German reliable-undergunned/Russian powerful-badly made balance flipped the other way round.
The Tiger ushered in the age of MOAR WEIGHT BIGGER GUNZ into the German mindset, whilst the Russians, British and US militaries went the opposite way with large enormous numbers of simpler tanks.
Sherman exemplified this approach in every way. It was the same as the T-34 in that it was superior to anything in the German inventory from the Pz IV short downwards and compared very favourably against the Pz IV long. Fast, reliable and very, very easy to fix (The US placed huge emphasis on field repairs, and smashed Shermans could be dragged from the front, patched up, the crew remains hosed out and back on the road in a very short time). It was easy to transport, decently armed (especially up-gunned with the Brit 17Pdr or Yank 76mm gun) and the sloped glacis plate proved pretty good against 50mm, early 75mm guns and angled the right way could resist the Panthers awesome 75mm long gun and even the 88 on the Tiger I down to very short ranges.
The T-34 was the same, only they didn't care how many they broke, because they could always replace the tank and the crew really easily. The T-34 was so easy to make that even during the Stalingrad siege, fresh T-34s were being made inside the city and driven straight into fights. They were pumping out over 1,300 a month (compare that to the total production run of the Tiger I from 1942 to 1945 of 1347) and holds the records of the most produced (57,000 wartime, 84,000 total), and most destroyed (44,000) tank in military history. The price of manufacture actually halved, such was the corners cut to speed production up.
But this came with a quality price, and the finish was so bad that some of them leaked when it rained. And not just through hatches.
However. Firepower goes to zee germans. Even the Pz IV long 75mm could hit harder than the 76mm on an up gunned M4 and against Panther and Tiger, the standard 75mm M4 couldn't kill Tiger or Panther frontally unless it hit specific areas at point blank range.
Where as Tiger could smash a Sherman frontally from 2 kilometres away and the Panthers 75mm gun was even better. I can't find the source, but the 88 was so over-powered at short ranges it used to pass clean through T-34s and take the engine out with it.
Even comparing the 17pdr / 76mm guns to the 'short' 88 on the Tiger I and long 75 on the Panther doesn't go well for the Sherman. Only with the introduction of super-rare saboted ammunition on the 17pdr, the much larger 90mm on the Pershing with HVAP shells and the Russian 100mm D-10 gun did the balance swing slightly.
I say slightly, as the Panther could still out-gun the D-10. And by the time these weapons were introduced, the King Tiger was rocking Europe with the 88/L71 gun which out-gunned even some sabot capable weapons of larger calibre and if you compare them all with similar ammunition types, was one of the most capable tank guns of the war.
Germany wasn't done there. The Jagdtiger had a 128mm gun that had better penetration values at 3km than most guns were capable at point blank range and did kill Shermans from four thousand metres. And there's the famous story of Carius putting a shell through a house at half a kilometre and still killing the Sherman cowering behind it.
And don't get started on the planned tanks like the Maus super-heavy and Ratte Land-Kreuzer with its 11 inch naval guns.
Yeah, that's right.
11 inch guns from the Scharnhorst class German fast battleships, mounted in a twin turret and capable of not only vaporising every land based target within 24km of its location, but also being the single biggest target for RAF Lancaster dropped 'Tallboys' since the Tirpitz.
But, back to the real world. The bigger the German armour got (even the 'medium' Panther was a heavy tank in all but name), the less reliable they became. The Maybach engines in the Tiger I was on the limits and they used it again on the II and the Jagdtiger. Modern day MBTs are a similar weight to WWII heavy tanks, but to be effective generate more than double the horsepower with modern diesel or gas turbine engines.
Shermans and T-34s had a really good power to weight and British Cromwell tanks were capable of 40mph on flat ground and could even jump over canals.
Funnily enough, thanks to the ridiculously complex wheel set up on the Tiger and Panther, the ground pressure and cross country abilities were awesome and were considered better off road and more manoeuvrable than Shermans.
Hydraulic power take offs to run the turrets meant that the engines needed to sit at high RPMs constantly whether they were moving or not. The steering systems, suspension, running gear, road wheel set up were teething problems in the Panther and Tiger series', with the D model Panther sorting most of them but it would plague every model and variant of Tiger until VE Day.
The Allies simply couldn't keep up with the rate that the German heavy tanks were being burned out by their own crews because they couldn't be moved after breaking down. Recovery of a Tiger I required several half track recovery vehicles in good conditions and I don't even think Jagdtiger could be towed after a break down and were simply abandoned by crews.
The Allies also had the advantage of not being bombed to fuck day and night by an air war that bordered on genocidal. Thanks to Stalins 'nil fucks' attitude during the initial part of Barbarossa and moving Soviet heavy factories to Siberia and the US being completely untouched by the war, they could manufacture enormous amounts of vehicles to any standards they set themselves without interruption.
Shermans were relatively well made and had some toys that even the Germans didn't use (gyro-stabilised guns for example). T-34s were being made in such numbers and became so robust that there are still examples in active service even today.
Conversely, whilst German designs were getting more complex, they're working under constant air raids and dwindling resources. As Cosmo put it, this meant that the armour quality in the Third Reich was shocking. The armour was more than thick enough (Tiger I turned to the right angle was invulnerable to almost anything), but a lack of raw materials later in the war (magnesium I think) meant it was brittle and would shatter, especially when hit by larger (152mm) HE shells.
Added now to a lack of decent commanders, almost hand-made parts, politics, a non-existent air force and very little supplies (especially fuel), late 1944/1945 wasn't a good time for Panzer Divisions. After the Battle of the Bulge and the Kursk Salient, it was all downhill.
I'm going to give my subjective opinion on this. The hassle with comparing WWII armour is unreliable reports, biased fanboys, and in some cases the tanks themselves being let down by manufacturing techniques.
As you'd expect by now from me, it's gonna be a long (12,000+) post.
So bottom line up front, You're almost on the money. US Shermans and T-34s were the ultimate mass-produced tanks and German armour (especially Tiger) suffered massively from 'add moar things'. Shermans were (as far as I've read) built to be very reliable. T-34s, not so much initially but were so simple that they're like AK-47s with tracks. German firepower was shit until they mounted an 88 millimetre AA gun on a heavy tank and from then on they ruled the roost with big sticks.
During Early Blitzkrieg, the Germans actually had shit tanks. Having had to start from scratch only a few years beforehand, most of the home-grown stuff was massively inferior to the French and British armour in France at the time. What helped Guderian and co. was superior tactics, combined arms warfare and a healthy influx of Czech tanks.
That trend continued right through the expansion of the Reich, especially East. The disparity between German and Soviet Armour and tactics in 1940 was ridiculous.
The USSR had far superior tanks, and more of them.
KV series tanks (the ones with the big turrets) proved basically invulnerable to just about anything in the German armoury. There's stories of KVs being hit with literally hundreds of direct impacts from Pz III and short Pz IV and just sitting there laughing.
And lets not get started with the T-34. It was immune to PaK 37mm guns at point blank range and the 50mm guns didn't fair much better. It was so much better than anything the Germans were using that the reports read like comedy sketches with individual T-34s (probably with the Benny Hill soundtrack blaring from speakers) being engaged by entire anti-tank battalions without damage or one running over a PaK 37 gun carriage, swatted a pair of Pz IIs and wandered so far into the German rear area that he was eventually brought down by artillery fire 14 kilometres behind the lines. My only assumption is the artillery was literally engaging him on open sights, being that far back behind the lines.
Back then, the only worries they had was being nailed by Luftwaffe Stukas or large calibre artillery being used in direct fire roles, particularly 105 howitzers and 88mm anti aircraft guns.
But all their best commanders had been gulag'd, they were using flags to communicate between tanks, whilst tactically and strategically they were in the dark ages.
And, the early models suffered from Russian build quality. Until the T-34-85, nearly the only modifications allowed were ones that made it easier to make and more were lost due to breakdowns and lack of recovery assets than enemy fire.
In contrast, back then the Kraut armour were designed for Blitzkrieg and could drive across countries whilst being properly supported, well-trained crews with the best tactics, proper radio communications and a 'stop for nothing' attitude. The German mobile warfare combined tanks, intimate close air support and the best commanders in the world into one sweet package that has been copied ever since.
They just lacked firepower.
Until someone looked at the 88/L56 anti-aircraft gun, looked at its combat reports, looked back at the gun and said 'Well, it's capable of killing any enemy tank at any real engagement distance, but its a pain in the ass to tow around on a gun carriage'. And the guy next to him said 'well, lets mount it on tracks then'.
The Tiger was born.
And from that moment on, the German reliable-undergunned/Russian powerful-badly made balance flipped the other way round.
The Tiger ushered in the age of MOAR WEIGHT BIGGER GUNZ into the German mindset, whilst the Russians, British and US militaries went the opposite way with large enormous numbers of simpler tanks.
Sherman exemplified this approach in every way. It was the same as the T-34 in that it was superior to anything in the German inventory from the Pz IV short downwards and compared very favourably against the Pz IV long. Fast, reliable and very, very easy to fix (The US placed huge emphasis on field repairs, and smashed Shermans could be dragged from the front, patched up, the crew remains hosed out and back on the road in a very short time). It was easy to transport, decently armed (especially up-gunned with the Brit 17Pdr or Yank 76mm gun) and the sloped glacis plate proved pretty good against 50mm, early 75mm guns and angled the right way could resist the Panthers awesome 75mm long gun and even the 88 on the Tiger I down to very short ranges.
The T-34 was the same, only they didn't care how many they broke, because they could always replace the tank and the crew really easily. The T-34 was so easy to make that even during the Stalingrad siege, fresh T-34s were being made inside the city and driven straight into fights. They were pumping out over 1,300 a month (compare that to the total production run of the Tiger I from 1942 to 1945 of 1347) and holds the records of the most produced (57,000 wartime, 84,000 total), and most destroyed (44,000) tank in military history. The price of manufacture actually halved, such was the corners cut to speed production up.
But this came with a quality price, and the finish was so bad that some of them leaked when it rained. And not just through hatches.
However. Firepower goes to zee germans. Even the Pz IV long 75mm could hit harder than the 76mm on an up gunned M4 and against Panther and Tiger, the standard 75mm M4 couldn't kill Tiger or Panther frontally unless it hit specific areas at point blank range.
Where as Tiger could smash a Sherman frontally from 2 kilometres away and the Panthers 75mm gun was even better. I can't find the source, but the 88 was so over-powered at short ranges it used to pass clean through T-34s and take the engine out with it.
Even comparing the 17pdr / 76mm guns to the 'short' 88 on the Tiger I and long 75 on the Panther doesn't go well for the Sherman. Only with the introduction of super-rare saboted ammunition on the 17pdr, the much larger 90mm on the Pershing with HVAP shells and the Russian 100mm D-10 gun did the balance swing slightly.
I say slightly, as the Panther could still out-gun the D-10. And by the time these weapons were introduced, the King Tiger was rocking Europe with the 88/L71 gun which out-gunned even some sabot capable weapons of larger calibre and if you compare them all with similar ammunition types, was one of the most capable tank guns of the war.
Germany wasn't done there. The Jagdtiger had a 128mm gun that had better penetration values at 3km than most guns were capable at point blank range and did kill Shermans from four thousand metres. And there's the famous story of Carius putting a shell through a house at half a kilometre and still killing the Sherman cowering behind it.
And don't get started on the planned tanks like the Maus super-heavy and Ratte Land-Kreuzer with its 11 inch naval guns.
Yeah, that's right.
11 inch guns from the Scharnhorst class German fast battleships, mounted in a twin turret and capable of not only vaporising every land based target within 24km of its location, but also being the single biggest target for RAF Lancaster dropped 'Tallboys' since the Tirpitz.
But, back to the real world. The bigger the German armour got (even the 'medium' Panther was a heavy tank in all but name), the less reliable they became. The Maybach engines in the Tiger I was on the limits and they used it again on the II and the Jagdtiger. Modern day MBTs are a similar weight to WWII heavy tanks, but to be effective generate more than double the horsepower with modern diesel or gas turbine engines.
Shermans and T-34s had a really good power to weight and British Cromwell tanks were capable of 40mph on flat ground and could even jump over canals.
Funnily enough, thanks to the ridiculously complex wheel set up on the Tiger and Panther, the ground pressure and cross country abilities were awesome and were considered better off road and more manoeuvrable than Shermans.
Hydraulic power take offs to run the turrets meant that the engines needed to sit at high RPMs constantly whether they were moving or not. The steering systems, suspension, running gear, road wheel set up were teething problems in the Panther and Tiger series', with the D model Panther sorting most of them but it would plague every model and variant of Tiger until VE Day.
The Allies simply couldn't keep up with the rate that the German heavy tanks were being burned out by their own crews because they couldn't be moved after breaking down. Recovery of a Tiger I required several half track recovery vehicles in good conditions and I don't even think Jagdtiger could be towed after a break down and were simply abandoned by crews.
The Allies also had the advantage of not being bombed to fuck day and night by an air war that bordered on genocidal. Thanks to Stalins 'nil fucks' attitude during the initial part of Barbarossa and moving Soviet heavy factories to Siberia and the US being completely untouched by the war, they could manufacture enormous amounts of vehicles to any standards they set themselves without interruption.
Shermans were relatively well made and had some toys that even the Germans didn't use (gyro-stabilised guns for example). T-34s were being made in such numbers and became so robust that there are still examples in active service even today.
Conversely, whilst German designs were getting more complex, they're working under constant air raids and dwindling resources. As Cosmo put it, this meant that the armour quality in the Third Reich was shocking. The armour was more than thick enough (Tiger I turned to the right angle was invulnerable to almost anything), but a lack of raw materials later in the war (magnesium I think) meant it was brittle and would shatter, especially when hit by larger (152mm) HE shells.
Added now to a lack of decent commanders, almost hand-made parts, politics, a non-existent air force and very little supplies (especially fuel), late 1944/1945 wasn't a good time for Panzer Divisions. After the Battle of the Bulge and the Kursk Salient, it was all downhill.
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Horus Lupercal
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It's a shame really. Because for all the flaws of the Germans addiction to enormous, over-designed, expensive tracked behemoths, they sorta missed out on the fact they already had a range of well designed, low profile, well armoured, well armed, highly regarded and reliable AFVs crewed by some of the most experienced vehicle commanders of the war.
The humble Sturmgeschütz.
The humble Sturmgeschütz.
Horus Lupercal
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Just reading the bumf on it now. It's offset by 50mm, the book doesn't explain why but considering the amount of design considerations and iterations the turret went through, my only thought is its so they could fit 3 men and an enormous 88mm gun into an enclosed space and still be able to operate/exit.
To be fair, I don't think a single inpulse 2 inches out is going to cause too much issue to a 13 ton turret
To be fair, I don't think a single inpulse 2 inches out is going to cause too much issue to a 13 ton turret
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