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Question for Gawdzilla

Gawdzilla said:
The Germans had been on the other end of that for a while early in Barbarosa. One instance that comes to mind is when a KV-1 took up a commanding position in front of a German ammo dump. A miss could have set off all their ammo, so the Germans stunted a battalion of tanks to distract the Soviets while one Mk IV snuck up behind it and put one "where the wind blows". (Apologies to Freddy Mercury.)
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Yes, and that illustrates the point about the heavy tanks. When a Soviet one appeared, the Germans in effect had to "besiege" it.

ETA I take it that the idea that Harry Dexter White could simultaneously manipulate the United States and the Japanese Empire is in your view an exaggerated estimate of his importance. But is there anything in the idea that, as often charged, Stalin was able to exert undue influence on the FDR administration through the use of agents of influence? Or by deceiving important people: Joseph E Davies, US ambassador to the USSR, 1936-38, seemed to have been particularly malleable; that is, if he was anything more than a complete idiot.
 
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Craig B said:
Yes, and that illustrates the point about the heavy tanks. When a Soviet one appeared, the Germans in effect had to "besiege" it.

ETA I take it that the idea that Harry Dexter White could simultaneously manipulate the United States and the Japanese Empire is in your view an exaggerated estimate of his importance. But is there anything in the idea that, as often charged, Stalin was able to exert undue influence on the FDR administration through the use of agents of influence? Or by deceiving important people: Joseph E Davies, US ambassador to the USSR, 1936-38, seemed to have been particularly malleable; that is, if he was anything more than a complete idiot.
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FDR was susceptible to flattery/cajolery, as are most men. But there were so many different people pulling for their own agendas that I doubt one person would have had a majority of influence on his decision.
 
catsmate1 said:
A lot of that was pre-war politics and personalities, too much emphasis on dive bombing for accuracy, for example
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As is usually the case with armchair critiques of such decisions, they often just prove that hindsight isn't really 20/20 ;)

The emphasis on dive bombing was because you can't really carpet-bomb a tank, even with the Norden sights, which the Germans didn't have an equivalent of. Well, not as accurate, and not until '41 when the Lotfernrohr 7 was introduced. But even the Norden under best conditions managed to put a bomb within 23 metres of where you aimed, but other evaluations produced a lot less ideal results. But let's go with 23m.

For a tank that's approx 5m by 3m, the chances of actually hitting it with a 23m accuracy are just not worth the cost of the bomb. We're talking a surface of 15 square metres, give or take, in a circle with a surface of PI * 23 * 23 = 1661 sqiare metres. Assuming that accuracy means half the bombs fall within 23m of the target, we halve again, and get less than a chance in 20 to hit the tank.

But again, at the time that Germany decided to go dive-bombing they didn't actually have any sights that could get that accuracy.

And the German doctrine was the blitzkrieg, not one of extended aerial sieges, because realistically it didn't have the economy (nor enough Jews to rob) to pay for extended siege wars. The plan was to knock the enemy out hard, not to harrass its cities. So what fit that doctrines were airplanes that can deliver precision strikes, including, yes, taking out a tank or an AT battery or a bunker if it's in the way.

Nothing else at the time (which, for the reference, actually means around the time of the Spanish civil war, which served as a testing ground for all sorts of doctrines and things for Germany, the USSR and Italy) promised to be even remotely near being able to do that.
 
Gawdzilla said:
And he didn't put the German economy on a total war footing until ... '43?

Another problem was over-engineering. One of my profs said, "The Germans would have done much better with their war industries if they hadn't been so German."
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My copy of "Fortune magazine" dated April 1941 details the enormous effort the US was planning just in the aviation industry for the next several years.
That magazine had to be available world-wide, and yet, what it showed was ignored.
One of the "features" of that regime was no direction. The constant struggle at the top levels for control of everything let some real bad ideas get some support, draining resources from where they were really needed.
 
Gawdzilla said:
The use of the slave labor was a desperation move, not a strategic decision. Hitler didn't want totaler krieg because he was concerned that it would show that he wasn't totally in control of the situation. And he didn't want women to be mobilized. Kinder, Kirche, Kuche was very important to him. This resulted in 50% of the population being under-utilized until it was too late.
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One of the maids we employed in Kitzingen in 1950 said she'd been on an AA battery that was credited with a B-24 kill.
 
I Ratant said:
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My copy of "Fortune magazine" dated April 1941 details the enormous effort the US was planning just in the aviation industry for the next several years.
That magazine had to be available world-wide, and yet, what it showed was ignored.
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And I bet they underestimated the final tally. 5,000 C47s alone built during the war.
One of the "features" of that regime was no direction. The constant struggle at the top levels for control of everything let some real bad ideas get some support, draining resources from where they were really needed.
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Hitler also liked to give a project to 2-3 rival personalities and watch the resulting scramble.
 
I Ratant said:
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My copy of "Fortune magazine" dated April 1941 details the enormous effort the US was planning just in the aviation industry for the next several years.
That magazine had to be available world-wide, and yet, what it showed was ignored.
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In fairness, there are undoubtedly German, Italian, and Japanese magazines from that era detailing grandiose plans for the expansion of the Luftwaffe, the Regia Aeronautica, and the Dainippon Teikoku Rikugun Kōkūtai.

The difference, of course, is that America could and did back up those words with actions.
 
SpitfireIX said:
Like the old Soviet saying: "'Best' is the enemy of 'good enough.'"
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Gawdzilla said:
"Tanks don't need to tell time, my watchmaking friend, they only go on the battlefield to die."
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True, and in wartime they don't have to last very long. A couple of years ia enough to do their job.

HansMustermann said:
As is usually the case with armchair critiques of such decisions, they often just prove that hindsight isn't really 20/20 ;)

The emphasis on dive bombing was because you can't really carpet-bomb a tank, even with the Norden sights, which the Germans didn't have an equivalent of. Well, not as accurate, and not until '41 when the Lotfernrohr 7 was introduced. But even the Norden under best conditions managed to put a bomb within 23 metres of where you aimed, but other evaluations produced a lot less ideal results. But let's go with 23m.

For a tank that's approx 5m by 3m, the chances of actually hitting it with a 23m accuracy are just not worth the cost of the bomb. We're talking a surface of 15 square metres, give or take, in a circle with a surface of PI * 23 * 23 = 1661 sqiare metres. Assuming that accuracy means half the bombs fall within 23m of the target, we halve again, and get less than a chance in 20 to hit the tank.

But again, at the time that Germany decided to go dive-bombing they didn't actually have any sights that could get that accuracy.

And the German doctrine was the blitzkrieg, not one of extended aerial sieges, because realistically it didn't have the economy (nor enough Jews to rob) to pay for extended siege wars. The plan was to knock the enemy out hard, not to harrass its cities. So what fit that doctrines were airplanes that can deliver precision strikes, including, yes, taking out a tank or an AT battery or a bunker if it's in the way.

Nothing else at the time (which, for the reference, actually means around the time of the Spanish civil war, which served as a testing ground for all sorts of doctrines and things for Germany, the USSR and Italy) promised to be even remotely near being able to do that.
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Agreed, the German doctrine, with aviation in support of tactical operations emphesised, neglected strategic bombardment. Their tactically orientated aircraft didn't do well in the Battle of Britain though they'd worked well in the early Blitzkreig.
 
catsmate1 said:
True, and in wartime they don't have to last very long. A couple of years ia enough to do their job.


Agreed, the German doctrine, with aviation in support of tactical operations emphesised, neglected strategic bombardment. Their tactically orientated aircraft didn't do well in the Battle of Britain though they'd worked well in the early Blitzkreig.
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They had at least one huge disadvantage. If a German pilot survived being shot down, he was taken prisoner. Surviving British pilots were often back in the air the same day.
 
Gawdzilla said:
And he didn't put the German economy on a total war footing until ... '43?

Another problem was over-engineering. One of my profs said, "The Germans would have done much better with their war industries if they hadn't been so German."
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I don't think they were that overengineered, given the circumstances.

For a start, they were against the USSR, which most people seem to underestimate how much of the economy it was giving to military productions. You weren't going to beat the Russians (after the initial surprise wore off) by making some cheap and wimpy BT-7 equivalents, because by sheer numbers you'd lose. The Russians already had over 5000 BT-7 alone.

Then there were the new T-34, which the Russians already had some hundreds at the time of Barbarossa, and would produce some 35,000 over the course of the war. Soon upgraded to a high velocity 88mm gun too. Not that it mattered in '41, since a direct hit with a 76mm gun could reliably kill some tanks around that time even with the HE round.

Plus the armour on the T-34 needed a bigger round to reliably penetrate, which in turn needed a reinforced turret ring and a bigger tank to use.

And then there were the about 150 (give or take) KV-1, which actually had a 45mm anti-tank cannon that could take out any German tank from any direction, and the heck of a lot of KV-2. The problem with the KV-2 wasn't just the extreme armour, but that the 152mm round could actually literally kill any tank even with the HE round.

In fact, the same round on a SU-152 later could even kill a Tiger, literally even with the HE round. The extreme explosive power meant it could actually tip over a tank, or literally rip the turret off a Tiger at any range by explosive blast alone. And also that even if somehow it didn't blow your armour wide open, the sheer mechanical shock and spalling could kill the crew.

Leading to the SU-152 being nicknamed "animal killer" (because of what it did to a Tiger or Panther, see?) or loosely the Russian equivalent of "####s up everything."

In '41 there were no SU-152, but the same gun was on the KV-2. So, yeah, you see why you wouldn't want a thinly armoured tin can against one of those.

Also, to return to an earlier theme, why you wanted dive bombers. Because a bomb on the top would kill any Russian tank.

Not that tanks were the only problem. The Soviets also produced masses of 45mm and 76mm AT guns. In fact, such masses of them, that the Germans actually had whole lines of vehicles built with captured Soviet AT guns. And yeah, tens of thousands of towed 152mm howitzers (again, the same as on the KV-2 and SU-152), and the darned things could shoot horizontally too.

So, yeah, there was a good reason to push engineering to the limits and try to make a heavy tank that could even hope to survive those.
 
Also, here's one thing to think about: Germany didn't have the FUEL to pull the same stunt as the USA and send 6 crappy tanks against each Soviet tank. The USA was the major oil exporter at the time. Sure, it could afford to fuel any number of tanks. Germany had a massive fuel shortage. It just didn't have enough of it to try to counter 35,000 T-34 with 200,000 crappy little tanks.
 
I don't see how. In fact, I can't think of a single piece of them that's "overengineered", as opposed to serving a purpose. But no doubt you have some clear examples in mind, so please share.
 
I see many posts on the 'net where the German "superiority" in weaponry, particularly the "designed bu not yet built" ideas are praised.
Any good think tank at any manufacturer would have a pool of these ideas, but for the West, practicality meant that what worked was built, with as little disturbance to the production or use of resources.
Some of the wilder German ideas couldn't work today!
And testing of new ideas there was discouraged by their lack of control of their own airspace. :)
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Extra: if any of the research plans of the designers in the West were as exposed to scrutiny as those of the German firms were following the surrender, there would be a lot of similar thoughts that were postponed until after the war.
 
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HansMustermann said:
I don't see how. In fact, I can't think of a single piece of them that's "overengineered", as opposed to serving a purpose. But no doubt you have some clear examples in mind, so please share.
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I'd have to dig out the file from Aberdeen Proving Grounds. They went over their tiger with a team from MIT. It's in a box. Somewhere.
 
Craig B said:
Under Adolf, the Wehrmacht was a "one trick pony", but even so, it's remarkable that the German air forces were trounced so completely ...
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catsmate1 said:
A lot of that was pre-war politics and personalities, too much emphasis on dive bombing for accuracy, for example
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I think to a large extent it can be boiled down to two words: Hermann Göring. By all accounts he was a disaster as head of the Luftwaffe. Had someone like Adolf Galland been in charge, things almost certainly would have been much tougher for the Allied air forces (though in the end the Allies still win due to attrition).
 
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