Why were Allied tanks so crap in World War 2?

[Mr. Kobayashi]

Shermans, Cromwells, Churchills, even the T-34 - all fall down on comparison with German armour. In Normandy a Tiger I wiped out 14 Allied tanks in as many minutes. Allied tankers pretty much agree that the Tiger was the superior tank in comparison with the ubiquitous Sherman. It's even a plot point in Kelly's Heroes. "Nobody said anything about no Tigers!"

And that's not even mentioning Panthers, King Tigers, Jadgpathers, Hetzers and the like (or even the absolutely insane prototype Maus).

Why was German armour so superior? It seems that the only area we excelled was in numbers, embracing Uncle Joe's notion that quantity had a quality of its own. While tanks may be easily replaceable, I doubt that was much comfort for the not so replaceable tank crews. While I doubt Stalin gave a toss about that, why didn't the western Allies with their incredible manufacturing capability and engineering smarts get their acts together and replace the Shermans, Cromwells et al when they got spanked?

[Declan]

Originally Posted by Mr. Kobayashi

Shermans, Cromwells, Churchills, even the T-34 - all fall down on comparison with German armour. In Normandy a Tiger I wiped out 14 Allied tanks in as many minutes. Allied tankers pretty much agree that the Tiger was the superior tank in comparison with the ubiquitous Sherman. It's even a plot point in Kelly's Heroes. "Nobody said anything about no Tigers!"

And that's not even mentioning Panthers, King Tigers, Jadgpathers, Hetzers and the like (or even the absolutely insane prototype Maus).

Why was German armour so superior? It seems that the only area we excelled was in numbers, embracing Uncle Joe's notion that quantity had a quality of its own. While tanks may be easily replaceable, I doubt that was much comfort for the not so replaceable tank crews. While I doubt Stalin gave a toss about that, why didn't the western Allies with their incredible manufacturing capability and engineering smarts get their acts together and replace the Shermans, Cromwells et al when they got spanked?

Keep in mind who won the war.

That being said, German tanks were designed to kill tanks, while American tanks were meant to support infantry advances. Different doctrines.

Declan

[Jaledin]

Hey I've seen *Patton* -- the answer is not enough Bradley in the mix. If I'm wrong I want to know why. America needs this, dammit.

[lazybratsche]

While everyone gets all hot and bothered by the German super tanks, really most of their armor was comprised of not particularly superior medium tanks and assault guns. Sure, the Sherman was inferior to Tigers and Panthers. But it wasn't out-matched by Pz IVs or StuGs. So even in a lot of tank-on-tank battles, the Shermans could perform just fine.

Though there was a difference in design philosophy. The Germans were constantly improving and upgrading their hardware. Tactically, that gave them a significant edge (when everything worked). But strategically, lots of redesigns means lots of factory shutdowns to retool. So the Allies just cranked out huge numbers of mostly-adequate tanks.

There were Allied heavy tanks in the production pipeline though -- the Pershing was equal to the best German tanks, though it didn't arrive in time to see any combat. But it was decided that it would be better to keep cranking out the Shermans in massive numbers.

And even then, the speed of tank development was astonishing. In the 1930s, tanks weren't much more than some plates and a gun riveted on top of a tractor. By 1945, tanks were orders of magnitude faster, and better armed and armored. Throughout that, the Allied tank designs were only a year or two "behind" the Germans.

One Tiger is definitely better than a Sherman. But 20,000 Shermans proved to be superior to a few hundred Tigers and a few thousand assorted medium tanks.

[Dissonance]

They weren't. Inferior sometime, but allied tanks were certainly not crap. They were, in general, more reliable mechanically than German tanks. It's easy to be awed by the gun and armor of the Panther, but it was a maintenance nightmare throughout its career. The later models fixed some of the problems but nowhere near all of them; bear in mind that one of the problems with the early models was the engine would set itself on fire. You're also looking at the very best of German armor, which was always a minority of German armor. On paper the Panther was only supposed to be 50% of a Panzer Division's tanks at the end of the war with the other 50% being Pz-IVs. The reality was that this was never achieved; the Panther was never available in very large numbers. From wiki

At the time of the invasion of Normandy, there were initially only two Panther-equipped Panzer regiments in the Western Front, with a total of 156 Panthers between them. From June through August 1944, an additional seven Panther regiments were sent into France, reaching a maximum strength of 432 in a status report dated July 30, 1944.

A status report on December 15, 1944 listed an all time high of 471 Panthers assigned to the Western Front, with 336 operational (71 percent). This was one day before the start of the Battle of the Bulge; 400 of the tanks assigned to the Western Front were in units sent into the offensive.

Also bear in mind that you are talking about late war armor, early in the war the Germans relied heavily on Pz-Is and Pz-IIs. During the fall of France the British Matilda and French Char B1 gave the Germans nightmares; none of their tanks or standard anti-tank guns could defeat their armor.

All of that said, the reason the Western Allies got the Sherman was a result of early war US Army doctrine; tanks weren't supposed to be anti-tank assets. The job of dealing with panzers was supposed to be handled by tank destroyers, not tanks. The reality of combat didn't meet this expectation of course, but that was what the US Army planned on. There's a good study here (warning, pdf) entitled Seek, Strike, and Destroy: U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in World War II written by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

[Lukeinva]

Same reason Mercedes, Audi, BMW... are better cars than US cars?

[Victor Charlie]

Bear in mind the Germans spent decades following their humiliation in WWI developing an unparalleled military complex with blitzkreig at the heart of it. The U.S., by contrast, had to ramp up large-scale weapons production in a matter of months. They were developing weapons AS they were going to war. Germany was building tanks in factories specifically designed for the task, wheareas American tank factories were often re-tooled auto factories. Plus, those Panzers weighed a helluva lot more than the ubiquitous Sherman, but the Germans didn't have to ship their tanks across the Atlantic. Given all the challenges, it's remarkable U.S. design and manufacturing was as devastatingly effective as it was.

[Chimera]

Originally Posted by lazybratsche

One Tiger is definitely better than a Sherman. But 20,000 Shermans proved to be superior to a few hundred Tigers and a few thousand assorted medium tanks.

If you want pure sillyness, check out this wiki page of WWII production figures. If the weapon numbers aren't more than enough, go down to the coal and crude oil production figures.

German tank production figures. Total of 1368 Tiger I's and 569 Tiger II's out of over 50,000 total tanks, or less than 4% of the total number of tanks produced. 60% of production was Panzer III's and IV's.

Whereas the US produced roughly 50,000 Sherman tanks of various models.

[Sailboat]

See this previous thread for some additional discussion.

Basically, you're right that the Allied tanks weren't great at fighting other tanks, and could have been improved. But there's a hidden assumption in your OP and an outright mistake.

The hidden assumption is the idea that the purpose of a tank is to fight another tank. That's only true if the military in question wants to do it that way. The American concept was to use different weapons for tank killing -- notably purpose-built tank destroyers, anti-tank guns, aircraft, and (in a pinch) bazookas for tank-killing.

American medium tanks (primarily the M-4 Sherman and its predecessor, the M-3 Grant/Lee) were general-purpose tanks, designed to fight infantry and obstacles and, above all, to maneuver at speed. As such they were reliable, fast, and had good suspensions for crew endurance during sustained drives. Fighting other tanks -- especially heavy special-use units like Tigers -- came as an afterthought.

It is certain they could have been made better for that task, but bear in mind that the theory behind their design was that they were not really for fighting other tanks -- you'd have to persuade the US military of the need to make them anti-tank specialists before you could set about upgrading them.

The "outright mistake" is to say the T-34 falls down in comparison to German armor. The T-34 has been called the best tank of the war by many authorities -- even perhaps a majority -- and its only competition for that title is the Mark V Panther, which was designed based on captured T-34s. Furthermore, the T-34 is often considered the best tank of all time when lists are made. The T-34 was superior to anything the Germans had when they first met it, and at war's end was still the equal of any medium tank in battle. The T-34 was fast and reliable, had fantastic cross-country and bad-weather performance, and used solid armor, well-sloped, combined with a good gun. Basically the main area of the Panther's superiority was better optics/rangefinding for long-distance engagements. You can mitigate that somewhat by using terrain to close without exposing yourself to long-range fire -- and the Panther was notoriously subject to mechanical failures.

Comparing the T-34 or Sherman to the super-heavies like the Tiger is not as meaningful as one might think, when one compares the numbers involved.


German armored vehicle production in WWII

Soviet armored vehicle production in WWII

American M-4 Sherman production figure: 49,234

Scanning those cites, you'll see that Tiger production for the war was 1,368 -- set against 49,234 Shermans and 57,339 T-34s. Add to that the fact that the later Tigers had difficulty even reaching the front, once fuel was scare and railroads and bridges had been largely destroyed, you're looking at a Tiger encounter being rare and unusual in the first place.

edit: I see I've been scooped a few times. :P

[Mr. Kobayashi]

Interesting, seems the old quote about the Germans being like an elephant attacking a host of ants applies just as much to their armour.

On the T-34, I always figured it for a more robust equivalent to the Sherman, in that they pumped them out like their was no tomorrow (which, if they hadn't, there might not have been). How did it stack up against the German panzers in encounters? I'm guessing it did better than the petrol-driven Sherman, although wiki indicates that the Germans still had the upper hand;
The Soviets lost 6, 4, 4 and 1.2 tanks for every German tank lost for the years 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945 respectively. [71] [72]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34#Fu...2.80.931943.29

[colonial]

Originally Posted by Declan

...while American tanks were meant to support infantry advances. Different doctrines.

No, American tanks were not meant to support infantry. The weakness of that doctrine was clear
by the time the US got in the war. US tanks were concentrated in Armored divisions just like the
other major combatants. Where US doctrine differed was in emphasizing the use of tank destroyers
rather than main battle tanks as the primary anti-tank weapon..

[Declan]

Originally Posted by colonial

No, American tanks were not meant to support infantry. The weakness of that doctrine was clear
by the time the US got in the war. US tanks were concentrated in Armored divisions just like the
other major combatants. Where US doctrine differed was in emphasizing the use of tank destroyers
rather than main battle tanks as the primary anti-tank weapon..

Ya run what ya brung. I dont doubt that tac doctrine evolved as the german blizkrieg became more apparent. But with the figures upthread for production of the M4, it would not have been that much difficulty switching over to all pershing armor formations and a ninety mil main gun.

What they did was to hold back production of the pershing, in favor of allocating the 90mm cannons for air defense, while still equiping formations with the M4.

That tells me that the army doctrine was still geared to infantry support and not anti armor, else at the very least they would have gone for a more substancial gun and round.

Declan

[Dissonance]

Originally Posted by Mr. Kobayashi

On the T-34, I always figured it for a more robust equivalent to the Sherman, in that they pumped them out like their was no tomorrow (which, if they hadn't, there might not have been). How did it stack up against the German panzers in encounters? I'm guessing it did better than the petrol-driven Sherman, although wiki indicates that the Germans still had the upper hand;
The Soviets lost 6, 4, 4 and 1.2 tanks for every German tank lost for the years 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945 respectively. [71] [72]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34#Fu...2.80.931943.29

There's a number of reasons. Some of it was the Germans were tactically much more proficient than the Soviets early on, an advantage that eroded as the Soviets got better and the Germans got worse as attrition eroded the advantage. Some of it is the Soviets simply had much more tanks than the Germans; tank losses weren't all or even mostly caused by other tanks, anti-tank guns knocked out more tanks than other tanks. Some of it was also less obvious weaknesses in the T-34. Early versions of the T-34 had a two-man turret while most German tanks by this point had three-man turrets. The two-man turret meant the tank commander had to do double duty as the gunner which greatly reduced situational awareness. The three-man turret meant a commander, a gunner and a loader so the commander could focus on the job of commanding the tank and could keep his head out of the turret hatch, giving vastly better for situational awareness than being buttoned up. The Soviets also had a chronic shortage of radios, especially early on in the war (a situation that also plagued the French and British in 1940). Often only the platoon commander had a radio in his tank and had to communicate orders to the rest of his platoon using signal flags, while the Germans had radios in every tank.

I think pop history is mostly to blame for misunderstanding German tanks and the Wermacht in general. Panzer, Panzergrenadier and Motorized divisions were only ever a small fraction of the German Army; the great majority was foot bound infantry divisions that relied on horse drawn transport for supplies and towing artillery and anti-tank guns. In a lot of ahisorical wargames the Germans are practically swimming in Panthers, Tigers, Jagdpanthers with the Panzergrenadier infantry all being driven around in Spw-251 halftracks. Only one of the four Panzergrenadier battalions in a late war Panzer Division had halftracks, the other three used trucks. Hollywood hasn't helped either, Kelly's Heros was a great movie but of course the German tank couldn't have been a Pz-IV or a StuG, it had to be a Tiger. Then there's Saving Private Ryan where in the final battle they couldn't be facing the regular German Army, they had to be SS despite the fact that the first SS elements to reach the American sector didn't arrive until days later and at Carentan. The SS had to have a tank as well despite the fact that the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen didn't even have a single tank, only an assault gun battalion that only reached the front later still. The tank of course also had to be a Tiger despite the fact that there were no Tigers in the American sector of the front until a month later.

[Dissonance]

Originally Posted by colonial

No, American tanks were not meant to support infantry. The weakness of that doctrine was clear by the time the US got in the war. US tanks were concentrated in Armored divisions just like the other major combatants. Where US doctrine differed was in emphasizing the use of tank destroyers rather than main battle tanks as the primary anti-tank weapon..

Yes and no. The US army organized Armored Divisions, but also raised enough independent tank and tank destroyer battalions that each Infantry Division had a tank battalion more or less permanently attached to it, and divisions in Europe had one or more tank destroyer battalions as well. I wish I could give numbers, but I don't have my copy of World War II Order of Battle: An Encyclopedic Reference to U.S. Army Ground Forces from Battalion through Division, 1939-1946 which is the bible of the US Army OOB handy and the appropriate pages don't seem to be available online. However if you look inside to page 75 and for some pages on Infantry Divisions are detailed with typical organizations and independent battalions attached and dates of attachment. The 1st Infantry Division for example had the 745th Tank Battalion attached to it from Normandy all the way until the end of the war, the 645th Tank Destroyer Battalion from August 1, 1944 to the end of the war and two other Tank Destroyer Battalions attached for briefer periods of time.

[t-bonham@scc.net]

Originally Posted by Lukeinva

Same reason Mercedes, Audi, BMW... are better cars than US cars?

And much the same results.

All of those brands are known for high maintenance expenses, being repair-prone, and taking more time & resources to manufacture (thus higher priced). So they are vastly outnumbered by sales of American brands (or Asian brands made in America).

Yep, very much like the Panzers of WWII indeed.

[AK84]

As has been mentioned. Allied tanks at the start to perhaps the mid of the war were generally better, certainly during the fall of France and the first months of Barbarossa as well as in N Africa at the start. The first really adequate tank the Germans had was the Panzer III, the first one superior to the Allies was the Panzer IV which was probably superior to a Sherman. It's with the Panther and the Tiger and the King Tiger that the Germans took a lead that they never surrendered during the war.These tanks came about in numbers during 1943. So for nearly the first few years of war, your hypothesis is wrong, the German tanks were either inferior or attest slightly better than the Allies and these were the years of German victory

The western allies did as it is begin plans for better tanks, but logistics requirements of Overlord put paid to that. They choose to go in with the Shermans not much upgraded from the ones at El Alamien because they could be produced in bulk. While they were efforts to upgun the Shermans, and the British did infact produce the Sherman firefly, the need for numbers and commanlity was paramount.When the Allies got to Normandy, the numbers of Tigers, Panthers and Jagdpanthers that they faced was a shock. Allied armor formations had a lousy tine, I remember reading that some armored divisions ended the Western Europe campaign with losses of several hundred percent. These losses were much greater than expected in large part due to the great disparity in performance of the the tanks, although the experienced German tank crews were undoubtedly a factor as well alongwitb the fact that many Western Allied and especially US troops, were quite inexperienced.

So, the Germans won while having worse tanks and lost while having better tanks. The answer to the OP is simple. The Germans continely improved rehire designs, From about 1942 till late 1944 the Allies did not or at least put those plans on the back burner. Note however, if the war had continued the newer Allied tanks would have been just as good if not better than the Germans. The Pershing did in fact arrive to see a bit of combat, but it might have started coming in numbers. The British Centurion tanks as well.

[Shakester]

Well, the RAF had flying tank killers that were devastating against everything the Germans had on the road, and the USAAF version was equally effective.

Two types in particular and other Allied ground attack aircraft in general rendered German armour pretty helpless by late '44.

[Otara]

The Wiki entry on the Sherman also says that one reason is that larger tanks like the Patton were actively delayed or resisted, ie they could have been in action earlier, but that there was a lot of debate over whether anti-tank or infantry support was the higher priority.

After the Battle of the Bulge, said resistance vanished pretty quickly, which I would take as a tacit acknowledgment that resisting their introduction was the wrong decision. By then it was too late for them to make it to combat in any serious numbers.

Otara

[Alessan]

Well, they could have given the Sherman a bigger gun.

[jz78817]

Originally Posted by Lukeinva

Same reason Mercedes, Audi, BMW... are better cars than US cars?

Their quality/reliability ratings do not bear this out.

[Martin Hyde]

The performance of Shermans versus the better German tanks obviously wasn't good, but in reality it had little to do with the outcome of the war. The German Tigers and Panthers were in such small numbers that their impact on the end stages of the war really was fairly minimal.

For the job they had before them, the U.S. Army was a lot better served by tens of thousands of Shermans than a few thousand Pershings. Namely because their goal was to take and hold territory formerly held by the Germans. To do that you need infantry, because "cavalry" can't typically hold territory by themselves. So for that reason having tens of thousands of tanks in units attached to infantry results in an overall stronger invasion force. A lot of the heaviest fighting involved us pushing against fairly dug in German lines at the end, sure once we broke loose in France it was a bit of a race but actually pushing into Germany having a ton of powerful tanks was less important than having a lot of tanks to help the infantry push against the tons of Germans still lined up to defend the home country.

Those production figures linked upthread are interesting but I'm betting most people don't recognize one of the most important sets of figures:

Military trucks: 3,060,354 Allied 594,859 Axis

Then of course oil production: United States alone produced 833m metric tons of oil, more than the entire rest of the world combined during this time. The total Allied production massively dwarfed the Axis production in total.

Trucks and fuel are important because that's the backbone of the logistical system of the Allied forces that defeated and invaded Germany. This ties into armor, because lack of logistics capability and lack of supply took out more Tiger tanks than American enemy fire, with some 50% of American captured Tigers being captured because they ran out of fuel on the battlefield. Aside from its general hopelessness, a big part of the reason (aside from lack of numbers needed to really be successful) the Battle of the Bulge didn't work as the Germans planned is they were running out of fuel in the middle of a relatively short distance offensive.

[Ludovic]

Originally Posted by Martin Hyde

Those production figures linked upthread are interesting but I'm betting most people don't recognize one of the most important sets of figures:

Military trucks: 3,060,354 Allied 594,859 Axis

Then of course oil production: United States alone produced 833m metric tons of oil, more than the entire rest of the world combined during this time. The total Allied production massively dwarfed the Axis production in total.

But of course in the Western theater, the lack of fuel for the Germans was more important than the overwhelming Allied raw production, because it had to be shipped in to France. The relatively fuel-efficient Shermans also helped in this matter because they used less gas than heavier vehicles did.

[Dufus]

Originally Posted by Lukeinva

Same reason Mercedes, Audi, BMW... are better cars than US cars?

Actually the Panther tanks were made by Porsche. That's why most of them spent the war broke down on the side of the road.

[colonial]

Originally Posted by Declan

Ya run what ya brung. I dont doubt that tac doctrine evolved as the german blizkrieg became more apparent. But with the figures upthread for production of the M4, it would not have been that much difficulty switching over to all pershing armor formations and a ninety mil main gun.

Pershing was developed too late to be used in multiple formations-- I don't think
more than 200 of them ever got to the ETO.

It would not have been a simple matter to convert mass production from ~30-35 ton
Shermans with 75mm guns over to 40+ton Pershings with 90mm guns. Early US war
planners favored mass production of one design with an emphasis on mobility, and
that turned out to be the Sherman, which had a decent chance vs all German tanks
except the Panther and Tiger. The UK was able to substitute its much more powereful
76.2mm/3" "Firefly" gun for the original 75mm Sherman gun, but the much heavier 90''
would have had a serious effect on stability and mobility.

Originally Posted by Declan

What they did was to hold back production of the pershing, in favor of allocating the 90mm cannons for air defense, while still equiping formations with the M4.

Pershing was as you say held back.

I had not heard 90mm guns were primarily allocated for AA, but maybe so, even though
by 1944 the US-UK enjoyed air dominance on all fronts except perhaps ETO strategic bombing.
In 1944 1400 90mm guns were mounted on the M36 MGC "Stonewall Jackson" tank destroyer
and another 924 were in 1945. Only 40 Pershings were produced in 1944, and the 2162
produced in 1945 were too late to have a big impact.

IMO it is too bad Pershing production did not gear up a year earlier, but then as the
tables show the US was grossly underequipped in AFV when it entered the war, with
zero Shemans yet in service. Planners must have felt the most pressing need was to
get as many combat-worth AFV into action as soon as possible, and that approach
necessarily favored lighter designs.

Also recall that the Tiger tank did not see action until 12/44, and it and the Panther
were not used in mass until 1943. US planners could not wait around to see what the
Germans had up their sleeve!

Originally Posted by Declan

That tells me that the army doctrine was still geared to infantry support and not anti armor, else at the very least they would have gone for a more substancial gun and round.

I do not believe doctrine was geared to infantry support as of 12/7/41.

[gunnergoz]

If you want to point fingers at one man, General leslie McNair is the one who had the most influence upon the American decision to design and field tanks for infantry support while simultaneously fielding anti-tank "tank destroyer" formations. His decision held back US tank and tank gun development for years...until McNair lost his life in Normandy when US B-17's mistakenly dropped bombs on US troop formations, including the one McNair was with. After his death, the "pro-tank" lobby (so to speak) in the US Army was able to take the growing evidence after D-Day that American tanks were under-gunned and used it to push for fielding the M-26 and increased numbers of 76mm armed M-4's. At the same time, TD's were increasingly armed with 90mm guns. All this served to push the TD community out of the way over time and after the war, the TD Command was totally disestablished and all its TD's were scrapped or given away by the US Army.

[colonial]

Originally Posted by colonial

Also recall that the Tiger tank did not see action until 12/44, and it and the Panther
were not used in mass until 1943.

Correction-- I meant to say the Tiger first saw action 12/42.

Both it and the Panther had to wait until 1943 to enter combat in significant numbers.

[Little Nemo]

The Allied tanks weren't crap compared to the Axis tanks. You can't compare them one-to-one because the whole point of the Allied planning was that they went for quantity rather than quality. The Allies realized that five good tanks were better than one great tank. And history proved them right.

So the question isn't why the United States screwed up by building second-rate tanks instead of building great tanks like the Germans did. The question should be why Germany screwed up by building so few tanks instead of building a lot of tanks like the Americans did.

[Dissonance]

Originally Posted by Alessan

Well, they could have given the Sherman a bigger gun.

More time appropriately the US could have gone with the British Sherman Firefly with a 17 pounder rather than the M4A3E8 'Easy Eight' with a 76mm gun when up arming the Sherman from a 75mm. The 17 pounder was a far better anti-tank gun than the 76mm; it could actually out penetrate the 88mm L/56 of the Tiger I and the 75mm L/70 of the Panther. I don't know if there were practical reasons it wasn't considered or if it was simply a case of NIH (Not Invented Here).

Originally Posted by colonial

I had not heard 90mm guns were primarily allocated for AA, but maybe so, even though by 1944 the US-UK enjoyed air dominance on all fronts except perhaps ETO strategic bombing.

The 90mm gun was originally built and issued as an antiaircraft gun. In another case of the realities of the war differing from doctrinal expectations, the US Army raised far, far more AAA battalions than it turned out to actually need. From here:

The German Blitzkrieg in Europe forced a widespread reevaluation of the Army's AAA capability and, beginning in 1940-1941 a vast expansion of the arm (it finally achieved an identity separate from the Coast Artillery in 1943). On 30 September 1942, it was proposed that 811 AAA battalions be organized (with a total strength of 619,000men).

However, this massive buildup of AAA units became largely redundant when another formerly poor relation of the US Army, the Army Air Corps, wrested command of the air from the Luftwaffe in 1943 and 1944. Many AAA battalions were disbanded to provide replacements in 1944, some were converted to artillery. A total of 258 battalions were inactivated or disbanded between 1 January 1944 and 8 May 1945. Nevertheless, AAA remained a strong component of the army and achieved something of resurgence in late 1944 in Belgium, defending Antwerp from the threat of the V-1 "Buzzbomb." On 31December 1944, there was still a total of 347 AAA battalions (with 257,000 men) active in the Army.

[Zakalwe]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

The question should be why Germany screwed up by building so few tanks instead of building a lot of tanks like the Americans did.

And the answer would be a lack of steel/raw materials to build the damn things and a lack of oil to fuel them with.

[colonial]

Originally Posted by Dissonance

More time appropriately the US could have gone with the British Sherman Firefly with a 17 pounder rather than the M4A3E8 'Easy Eight' with a 76mm gun when up arming the Sherman from a 75mm. The 17 pounder was a far better anti-tank gun than the 76mm; it could actually out penetrate the 88mm L/56 of the Tiger I and the 75mm L/70 of the Panther. I don't know if there were practical reasons it wasn't considered or if it was simply a case of NIH (Not Invented Here).

The 90mm gun was originally built and issued as an antiaircraft gun. In another case of the realities of the war differing from doctrinal expectations, the US Army raised far, far more AAA battalions than it turned out to actually need. From here:

Thank you for the information-- I had no idea so many men and so much equipment was
squandered in AA units. It appears from the link that the 90mm was one of several guns
allocated to AA. All of them would have been more rationally deployed as anti-tank.

I guess in defence of US Army planners German air arm ground attack took a heavy and
well-publicized toll before the US entered the war. There was at first no way of knowing
whether Stukas would be available in waves for use against the new foe.

[Shalmanese]

Originally Posted by AK84

I remember reading that some armored divisions ended the Western Europe campaign with losses of several hundred percent.

How do you have a loss of more than 100%?

[Telemark]

Originally Posted by Shalmanese

How do you have a loss of more than 100%?

You replace some losses, and they get killed too.

[t-bonham@scc.net]

Originally Posted by Shalmanese

How do you have a loss of more than 100%?

Some are destroyed, you replace them, the replacements are destroyed, too.

So for example, a unit with 100 tanks, 70 are destroyed, then replaced, then 60 of the replacements are destroyed. So you have 130 tanks destroyed for a unit of 100 tanks = 130% loss.

[Dissonance]

In fairness, casualties exceeding 100% of authorized strength was very common for all armies; all they had to do was spend enough time in combat. There's a tabular breakdown of casualties by division in the US Army in WWII here from the from the official Army Battle Casualties and Nonbattle Deaths in World War II, Final Report 7 December 1941 -- 31 December 1946. The authorized strength of US infantry divisions was 14,253 men; I count 16 infantry divisions with battle casualties exceeding 100% and several more coming very close, the worst being the 3rd Infantry division with 25,977 or 182% casualties. Worse still the great majority of casualties fell on the rifle companies which were a minority of a division's strength, 193 men per company with 3 companies per battalion and 9 battalions per division, so 5,211 men in the rifle companies if I did the math right.

By contrast the authorized strength of an 'light' Armored division was 10,937 and for the 'heavy' Armored division structure of which only the 2nd and 3rd Armored divisions retained it was 14,488; none of the Armored divisions had 100% or more personnel casualties.

[Seraph062]

Originally Posted by Mr. Kobayashi

On the T-34, I always figured it for a more robust equivalent to the Sherman, in that they pumped them out like their was no tomorrow (which, if they hadn't, there might not have been). How did it stack up against the German panzers in encounters? I'm guessing it did better than the petrol-driven Sherman, although wiki indicates that the Germans still had the upper hand;
The Soviets lost 6, 4, 4 and 1.2 tanks for every German tank lost for the years 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945 respectively. [71] [72]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34#Fu...2.80.931943.29

The T-34 had a nice gun and good armor but it had a number of serious drawbacks, many related to the crew. The driver had poor visibility so the commander had to keep giving instructions to keep the tank going where he wanted it to. The turret only held two people, so the commander was also the gunner. The turret crew positions didn't rotate with the gun so those crew members had to be very careful or they would get caught by the recoil of the gun. In most of the T-34's there was no radio, so if the commander wanted to communicate with other tanks he had to use hand signals. If you haven't caught on yet the commander was REALLY overworked.

Originally Posted by Dissonance

More time appropriately the US could have gone with the British Sherman Firefly with a 17 pounder rather than the M4A3E8 'Easy Eight' with a 76mm gun when up arming the Sherman from a 75mm. The 17 pounder was a far better anti-tank gun than the 76mm; it could actually out penetrate the 88mm L/56 of the Tiger I and the 75mm L/70 of the Panther. I don't know if there were practical reasons it wasn't considered or if it was simply a case of NIH (Not Invented Here).

The 17 pounder had problems associated with it, the ones I'm familiar with all relate to the ammo:
Lousy HE rounds - It might have been effective against armor, but not against infantry or lightly armored vehicles. An effective HE round was eventually developed, but it still wasn't as good as the old 75mm HE rounds.
The sabot round, which gives the high armor penetration was relatively weak (i.e. didn't do much after penetrating) and early versions were inaccurate.
The rounds themselves were large, so fewer of them could be carried, and they were harder to load resulting in a lower rate of fire. Freeing up space for ammo also resulted in the loss of a crew member and a machine gun. The extra powder in the larger round resulted in an obnoxiously bright muzzle flash which at night would blind anyone in the tank who was looking outside when the gun was fired, and would give away the tanks position to anyone who wanted to shoot back.

The Firefly was a nice tank for what it needed to do, specifically allow the British to deal with the heavier tanks in the SS panzer divisions they seemed to attract.

[Dave Hartwick]

Soviet tanks weren't crap. In the early part of the war, the T-34 was the best tank in the world, despite drawbacks already mentioned, such as the 2 man turret. It may have been surpassed in firepower and armor by the Panther and Tiger tanks-- which were designed in response to the T-34 and KV tanks-- but was upgraded to the T-34-85. Wikipedia has a telling paragraph:

Although a T-34-85 was still not a match for a Panther, the improved firepower made it much more effective than before. The decision to improve the existing design instead of tooling up for a new one allowed the Soviets to manufacture tanks in such numbers that the difference in capabilities could be considered insignificant. In May 1944, the Wehrmacht had only 304 Panthers operating on the Eastern Front, while the Soviets had increased T-34-85 production to 1,200 tanks per month.[40]

For some reason, people sometimes look at the victories the Germans enjoyed using Blitzkrieg tactics and assume that tank quality is a, if not the, main reason, as if the Wermarcht was fielding Panthers in 1939. My understanding is that even the disparaged French army fielded comparable, maybe even superior, tanks to those of the Germans, and certainly appears to have had a great advantage in terms of mechanization. Again, Wikipedia:

Contrary to what the blitzkrieg legend suggests, the German Army was not fully motorised. Just 10% of the Army was motorised in 1940 and could muster only 120,000 vehicles, compared to the 300,000 of the French Army. The British also had an "enviable" contingent of motorised forces.[60] Most of the German logistical tail consisted of horse-drawn vehicles.[61]
Only 50% of the German divisions available in 1940 were combat ready,[60] often being more poorly equipped than their equivalents in the British and French Armies, or even as well as the German Army of 1914.[62] In the spring of 1940, the German army was semi-modern. A small number of the best-equipped and "elite divisions were offset by many second and third rate divisions".[62]

[Sailboat]

Originally Posted by Dave Hartwick

For some reason, people sometimes look at the victories the Germans enjoyed using Blitzkrieg tactics and assume that tank quality is a, if not the, main reason, as if the Wermarcht was fielding Panthers in 1939. My understanding is that even the disparaged French army fielded comparable, maybe even superior, tanks to those of the Germans, and certainly appears to have had a great advantage in terms of mechanization. Again, Wikipedia:

True. The French had more tanks than the Germans in 1940*, and some of them were markedly better than the German tanks.

It would be a hijack to go into the reasons behind the French defeat at length. Short version: there were three main reasons behind the defeat.

1. The French armor was dispersed all along the front in small quantities ("penny packets," in the memorable phrase of one observer) in an attempt to "stiffen" a continuous front. The German tanks were massed into dedicated armored divisions and hurled at a single point in the line. Result: most of the French tanks never saw a German tank or even a German soldier; a few French tanks saw waaaay too many German tanks and were quickly overrun.
   
2. The German battle plan happened to prey on the weaknesses of the the Franco-British battle plan very effectively. The Franco-British forces, assuming (correctly) that their Maginot Line was invulnerable, were poised to hurl themselves forward into Belgium the moment the Germans violated Belgian neutrality. They expected the Germans to swing around the Maginot Line and come through Belgium, and intended to meet them head-on to try to hold as much of the country as possible (and, not incidentally, keep most of the battle from reaching French soil). Instead, the Germans attacked on a narrow front right at the juncture between the end of the Maginot Line and Belgium, through terrain (erroneously) considered impassable to tanks (the Ardennes Forest) and thus held by weaker forces. This resulted in the Franco-British lunging forward into a relative vacuum, while the German spearhead split the "continuous front" near Sedan and drove across the base of the advancing Allied salient to the sea, cutting it off (and eventually forcing the evacuation at Dunkirk). A classic "revolving door" offensive.
   
3. Lastly, panic. Blitzkrieg was new, few people understood how to fight it, and nobody was prepared for how fast things developed (not even most of the Germans -- several generals and Hitler himself kept trying to slow down their advance.) Although the French fought bravely at first (the Indo-Chinese French colonial units earned a particularly hard-core reputation, foreshadowing how doggedly they and their children would fight after their homeland was renamed Viet Nam), the new experience of facing massed armor coordinated with tactical airpower was unnerving, and the constant reports that the Germans had broken through behind them undermined their willingness to stand in place. Eventually it turned into a rout.

*Allies: 3,383 tanks Germans: 2,445 tanks, from here.

[MOIDALIZE]

As the best generals knew, it was far better to occupy a position with an inferior force before your enemy could, than it was to assemble a superior force and have to wrest a position from the enemy. In a war of maneuver, the combat strength of your tanks is less important than the tactics and doctrine they employ. Advance far enough into an enemy's rear, and it doesn't matter how good his tanks are; he's already lost the battle.

[ralph124c]

The Germans were the first to master massed tank actions. As was pointed out, this was part of their "Blitzkrieg" style of making war-it was predicated upon:
-quick victories
-massing overwhelming force at the enemies weak points
-exploiting the enemies shock and confusion
This worked well against France and Poland, because both country's generals had prepared for a replay of WWI. But against a well prepared, well supplied foe (the Russian Army after 1941) it was disastrous. Tke the Battle of Kursk-the Germans with their Leopard and Tiger tanks, made no headway-they were beaten from the start. Yes, the Tiger was a powerful tank, but it was complex, consumed fuel like a hog, and broke down frequently. When allied tank destroyers became available, it was toast.
Which leads to a question: are huge, expensive main battle tanks worth building today? Robotic tanks would be cheaper to build, I would think.

[ExTank]

Originally Posted by ralph124c

Which leads to a question: are huge, expensive main battle tanks worth building today? Robotic tanks would be cheaper to build, I would think.

There doesn't seem to be much of a strategic role for the MBT now or for the foreseeable future; from what I've heard, they come in handy tactically, on occasion, but are probably not worth the headache of getting to a foreign theater of operations, and all the logistical support that implies, just to fight insurgents.

As far as robotic tanks are concerned, do you think AI is advanced enough to be responsive to a flexible tactical environment?

Or are you secretly in league with SkyNet in a bid to bring on Judgement Day?

[Mr. Slant]

Originally Posted by ExTank

Or are you secretly in league with SkyNet in a bid to bring on Judgement Day?

No way, that would make no sense at all...

http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/HK-Tank

Going back to an earlier part of the conversation, I'll chime in and note that if you had a truly hideous fuel situation coming ahead, producing a small quantity of high-quality tanks might NOT be the wrong solution.
That being said, producing fuel-hungry juggernauts rather than lightweight models closer to the Patton would be a questionable decision.