My Research on WWII

[BeBro]

Even if I´m German, I don´t believe that 33-45 it was the best time for my country. And I agree that the Germans were superior in some fields, I´m only in doubt that this was the case generally over the whole war.

Of course the Sherman was no match for a Panther or Tiger, but since allied Air Forces ruled the skies over western europe, the Allies could balance out this easily.
Or take a look on the Battle in the Atlantic, first the German UBoats inflicted heavy losses on Allied convoys, but later the Allied antisubmarine warfare abilities were superior.

For the Soviet forces, I think the T34 is one of the best tanks of the war, a great combination of armor, speed, and weapons, and also not too difficult to produce, like some of the German models. I´m not sure, but I think the Panther was the German reaction to the superiority of the T34.
But the T34 wasn´t the only excellent Soviet weapon, think on the Il2 Sturmovik, or the tank hunters Su100 or Su152.

I think the high Soviet losses are also related to Stalin´s politics to throw his own soldiers in the fights at any risk, without thinking of the losses (I´ve read about Soviet orders to start counteroffensives even in the first days of the war, when this was suicide).

 

[kobayashi]

Actually the whole point was to just rely on the kill stats and not get into model by model comparisons. But just for fun, not that anything I write here is conclusive...

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since allied Air Forces ruled the skies over western europe, the Allies could balance out this easily.
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The Allies simply had more planes (not inferior but of roughly the same quality)

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Or take a look on the Battle in the Atlantic, first the German UBoats inflicted heavy losses on Allied convoys, but later the Allied antisubmarine warfare abilities were superior.
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Shortages did not allow the new elektro-boats to make an impact. They are the first precusors to today's modern subs in that they could run underwater at the same speed they could on the surface.

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I think the T34 is one of the best tanks of the war, a great combination of armor, speed, and weapons, and also not too difficult to produce, like some of the German models.
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The T-34 was the best tank when it was introduced. It was also easier to produce as you mentioned. It was not the best tank after the Panther appeared (yes it was a German reaction to the T-34). In fact, all the so called heavy tanks of the Allies, including the JS-2, were in the low 40 tonnes range of the Panther. The JS-2 also had roughly the same thickness of armour. i.e., the Allies did not even have a single heavy tank.

"On the road from Bollersdorf to Strausberg stood a further 11 Stalin (JS2) tanks, and away on the egde of the village itself were around 120-150 enemy tanks in the process of being refuelled and re-armed. I opened fire (in a Tiger II) and destroyed the first and last of the 11 Stalin tanks on the road.... My own personal score of enemy tanks destroyed in this action was 39."
SS-Haupstscharführer Karl Körner, schwere SS Panzer Abteilung (103) 503 / III SS Panzer Corps, East Germany, April of 1945.

"One day a Tiger Royal tank got within 150 yards of my tank and knocked me out. Five of our tanks opened up on him from ranges of 200 to 600 yards and got five or six hits on the front of the Tiger. They all just glanced off and the Tiger backed off and got away. If we had a tank like Tiger, we would all be home today." - Report by tank commander Sergeant Clyde D. Brunson from 2nd Armored Division, 1945.

I guess the quotes say it all. Less than 500 Tiger IIs were made. On solid ground they reigned supreme. (but there was frequent need for maintenance and they were underpowered).

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But the T34 wasn´t the only excellent Soviet weapon, think on the Il2 Sturmovik, or the tank hunters Su100 or Su152.
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The russians concentrated on increasing the diameter of their guns withour realising that the length of the barrels were more important. That's why the King Tiger only used an 88mm (71 calibres or 6.3m long). The gun could penetrate 190mm of armour sloped at 30 degrees at 1000m.

The premier tank destroyer of the War was the the Jagdpanther (of which also less than 500 manufactured) armed with the same long barreled 88mm gun as the King Tiger. As a tank destroyer, it was more than a match for the SU-122 (43 calibres) which incidently couldn't even penetrate the frontal armor of the King Tiger (180mm sloped).

other points:

The SU-152 was self-propelled artillery not a tank destroyer

Il2 Sturmovik - Agree that they were immensely robust with good armour for pilot protection and high survivability. But were their 20mm cannons effective against ground targets? (actually I don't know the answer to this)

 

[BeBro]

Hmm, I may be wrong (as with the SU 152 - but wasn´t the ISU 152 the artillery version? Again, I´m not sure, but I always thought that), but I thought the Il2 carried also rockets.

And I also don´t want to start a crusade here, but I find it interesting to discuss these things

 

[Dreadnought]

While were on the topic of german tanks though, lets discuss the horrible strategy the germans used in tank development. I personally think that germany focused on too many versions and designs than it should have. One reason it did this was because there were so many different manufactours. But still they focused on creating about ten tanks at a time and producing three or four.

They should have used all avialble technolgy and started from scratch everytime to build one new tank every year. What we saw in German develpoment was small improvements on flawed desgnes. Such as the pz-III and pz-IV
Pz-III had too small of a turret ring to be effective after 42' so that tank should have been scatched and Pz-III was too slow and under armoured after 43' it should have been stopped also. Germany should have stopped production on these series of tanks and begin immediatly and pz-V and Pz-VI series as soon as they were developed. If they would have done that they would have had a perfectly good heavy tank(tiger) and perfectly good medium tank(panther).

All the diffent verions also lead to horrible supply problems and logistical mahem. you would often find that tank battalions could be mad up of mixes of all kinds of tanks. these tanks all had deffernet ranges and speeds. Refuled and movement was horribly complex.


Also, i disagree on the JS-2, it was about as powerful as a tigerII. It had a larger caliber gun(w/ adequet length). Its armor was, heavier than a tiger I for sure.

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"Nothing in the world can endure forever"
-Roman Citizen

 

[Marko]

Some technical data:

Until September 1, 1939 Soviet Union had produced more than 24 000 tanks:

T-18 - 950
T-24 - 24
T-26 - 9000
T-27 - 3300
T-28 - 503
T-35 - 60
T-37 - 2627
T-38 - 1375
BT-2 - 600
BT-5 - 1900
BT-7 - 4600

About 20 000 of them were still working. (Germany has 01.09.1939 3195 tanks)
More than 5000 tanks were used during Soviet offensive against Poland in the end
of September 1939.

During the period 1939-45 Soviet tank production was quite constantly about
10 times bigger than Germany's.

T-34/76:
1940 - 115
1941 - 2800
1942 - 12 553
1943 - 15 812
1944 - 3500
Total - 34 780

T-34/85:
1944 - 10 663
1945 - 12 551
Total (1944-45) - 23 214

Plus production of T-26, T-28, BT-7, T-40, T-50, T-60, KV-1, KV-1s, KV-2,
KV-8s, KV-85, T-44, IS-2 and some other types.

Also it is not true that all Soviet tanks were without radio.
Tanks T-26, BT-5, BT-7, T-50, T-28, T-35, T-34, KV and
IS series had radio (models 71TK-1, 71TK-3, 9R or 10R).
For example most of T-26 which were produced since 1937 had 71TK-1
or 71TK-3 type radio.

Until 1990s the real production numbers were state secret in Soviet Union.
This is the reason why there are so big differences in numbers and other data
in different sources. Only during last years when Russian archives are opened,
more reliable information has been published.

In Internet one of the best site about Russian weaponry in WW2 is
www.history.enjoy.ru


[This message has been edited by Marko (edited March 11, 2001).]

 

[Marko]

As Dreadnought already said IS-2 tank was very good. It has equal weight with Panther but exceeded Panther in armor penetration and protection abilities (IS-2 could penetrate the Panther's frontal armor from 1100-1200 metres, while the Panther could penetrate the IS-2's armor from only 600-700 metres).
Only drewback was that heavy armoring constrained by low weight let less internal space for the IS-2's crew and ammo - IS-2 had only 28 shells (the Panther had 81).

Compared with the Tiger, the IS-2 was slightly better protected even though it was ten tons lighter. Both tanks could penetrate each other's frontal armor from ~1000 metres. The IS-2 had thicker armor, thus it had a better chance at distances over 1500 metres. On the other hand, the Tiger had better optics and thus had a better chance of hitting the IS-2.

King Tiger was only German tank superior to IS-2. It had thicker armor and its 88 KwK gun has better AP ability. The IS-2 could only successfully fight against the King Tiger at short distances, where the difference in AP ability was not so big.
But it is also important to note that the IS-2 was much more reliable and cheaper than the King Tiger. Also it was better against anti-tank guns and infantry than German tanks were.

 

[kobayashi]

Marko,

Point taken about the tanks. For everyone's info, the german tank tech tree will split into two branches after the Pz4. They can build either the Tiger or Panther first but the Panther can only be researched after the first T-34 is destroyed. Then the two branched will merge to build the King Tiger. Tiger and King Tiger will be different from all other tanks in that they will have the movement allowance of infantry. The JS2 will be more powerful than the Panther in attack so it will be the most powerful tank that can move double.

For my info, were the baltic states conquered by the Soviets before or after the invasion of Poland? And was there any pretext for attacking? Also, can you confirm that Vilnius was not the capital of Lithuania in the 1940s.

[This message has been edited by kobayashi (edited March 11, 2001).]

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

The baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) Were occupied at the same time as the attack on Poland by Soviet forces. They had been part of Imperial Russia, and the Soviets wanted them. They had no other pretex as such, but they were in a secret protocol in the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, so Hitler was fully aware that that the Russians intened in take them. Also included in the protocol was strip of Romania called Bessarabia, with the same reasoning(Part of Imperial Russia), as well as parts of Finland. Hitler was angry that he could not contest the Baltic states, but he knew he would attack in the west soon, and needed a peaceful border with the Soviets. He also intended to attack Russia eventually, so they would be placed under German control. One other thing Kob, you asked about Bulgaria and Rumania, and I forgot to respond. Rumania was an Axis ally untill mid 1944, then switched sides to try to preserve their country from the advancing Soviets. Bulgaria refused to declare war on the USSR, saying that they were fellow slavs, and only declared on the western allies. The Soviets ignored such fine destintions and occupied Bulgaria anyway in late 1944. I'll have to look up info on the capital question(this is off the top of my head), and I will get back to you.

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<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/blast.gif" border=0><FONT COLOR="blue">All knowledge begins with the Phrase: I don't know</FONT c><IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/ninja1.gif" border=0>

 

[Dreadnought]

Kob, Keep up the good work, I hope this scenario is as awesome as it sounds.
If there's any other info that needs to be discussed I'm Here!

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"Nothing in the world can endure forever"
-Roman Citizen

 

[kobayashi]

If I'm not mistaken, everybody had tank models with radios. Its just that at the start of World War II, the convention was to only put a radio in the company commanders tank while the Germans did the revolutionary thing of putting radios in every single tank.

(Well almost everybody - the poles were still using flags)

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

Yes, that is pretty much the case for most of the Blitzkreig era armies. The exception was Britain. Armor from Poland, the low countries, and Italy usualy didn't have a radios at all. The French system was for the Companie commander only to have a radio. The Soviets usual practice was for only the Regimental commander to have it(In 1939-41). The Soviets increased this as the war went on. Also, the Soviets used AM band radios, as opposed to FM that was used by the other combatants.

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[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

That ol' DP.

[This message has been edited by Alcibiaties of Athenae (edited March 13, 2001).]

 

[kobayashi]

Does anyone want to comment on this article?
http://www.historynet.com/WorldWarII/articles/1998/0298_text.htm

or this article
http://www.zhukov.org/Kursk.htm

[This message has been edited by kobayashi (edited March 14, 2001).]

 

[willemvanoranje]

I'm printing it out, now. I'm going to read it tonight.

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Concordia res parvae cres****.

 

[andycapp]

Kob,
Will your Scenario include all theaters of war (eg Pacific campaigns) between 1939-45 or just Europe?

 

[andycapp]

Originally posted by andycapp:
Kob,
Will your Scenario include all theaters of war (eg Pacific campaigns) between 1939-45 or just Europe?

OK, I should have looked down the list of threads. No need to answer Kob, by the way your proposed scenario sounds great.

 

[willemvanoranje]

Weel, I read the one about that said the Germans were closer to victory. It's very interesting, but do you intend to use it in your scenario?

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Concordia res parvae cres****.

 

[kobayashi]

Even if the Germans did win at Kursk, it may have delayed the war by a year but I think the Germans would have lost in the end. After all the southern flank had opened up. But imagine if there was no landing in Sicily or Anzio, maybe the Germans could have reached Moscow before Normandy.

There's no direct impact on my scenario, other than reinforcing the point that german tanks (and tactics)....

 

[Flatlander Fox]

I'm of the opinion that the Russians probably could have won pretty much on their own. The mobilization is what almost cost them Moscow, plus the fact no one was really in charge of the Army except for Josef himself. Once the Russians turned back the big push, the Germans really just hurt themselves by throwing what they had into the meat grinder. I am a big believer in that the only front that really mattered in the whole war was the Eastern Front. I think that this Scenario is going to be really exciting.

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It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at THAT man.

 

[kobayashi]

I'm down to filling the units and improvements on the map. But I have questions for everyone about fortifications?

The Maginot line stretches from Switzerland to Belgium but I read somewhere that there was a northern section continuing after the Ardennes gap.

Was it half completed or just planned?
Was it in Belgium or in France?

The other fortifications I know of are Monte Casino and Eben whatever??? in Belgium. What other are fortresses were there in Western Europe?

Were there any in North Africa?

Supposedly the giant rail cannons firing 1 meter AP shells were used to smash the fortifications at Sevastapol. Were there other Russian fortresses (like Leningrad which was under seige)?