[ARC5] Re off-topic

[Francesco Ledda]

Interesting discussion about the  M-26...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M26_Pershing

-----Original Message-----
From: arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On
Behalf Of Kenneth G. Gordon
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2012 10:07 PM
To: ARC5 at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Re off-topic

On 5 Jan 2012 at 19:18, gordon white wrote:

>       This, I'm afraid, is quite a bit off-topic, but I have been
> reading Wolfgang Schneider's book about the German Tiger tanks in
> Normandy.in 1944. It is a cautionary tale about having a significantly
> better weapon that could easily beat a large number of inferior
> weapons.

In one-on-one situations with both tanks in top condition, yes.

However, the Tiger tanks were notoriously unreliable. Their Maybach V-
12 engines were very problematic. I have seen photos of a recently 
restored Tiger. The cylinder walls were extremely thin, leaving 
nothing left to rebore if their cylinders were worn out.

The Tiger also had extremely short range.

However, training of their gunners was top-notch. Those gunners would 
routinely make all their first shot kills at extreme range.

The book, "Panzer Gunner" details the process.

>      The Tiger - fortunately there were only about 134 of them in the
> west in June, 1944 - was equipped with a high-velocity 88 mm gun that
> could defeat the British Cromwell and Churchill and U.S. Sherman tanks
> at distances where the Allied 75 mm guns were outranged.

This is true, but when the Sherman was up-gunned with the British QF-
17, they certainly equalled the Tiger in firepower. Those were the 
"Firefly". Something like 500 Shermans were converted to that 
configuration.

> The Tigers
> had about twice the frontal armor, too.

Yes, but they were "slab-sided", unlike the Panther, and relied on 
thickness of armor rather than sloping or shaping. This thickness and 
subsequent weight made them slow and a bit unwieldy.

> In many instances  single
> Tigers killed 20 or more Allied tanks in an engagement. The Allies
> lost 2,395 tanks in Normandy,

Many of these losses were due to the hedgerow problem, in which the 
Allied tanks had to climb OVER the hedgerows, exposing their very 
vulnerable undersides. When some Allied farm boy added those steel 
toothed prongs on the fronts, those losses were much reduced.

> while at least a third of the Tigers
> survived, though on the retreat from Fallaise most were unable to get
> across the Seine because the bridges had been blown.
> 
>      Miscalculations by the Germans put most of the Tigers in the
>      wrong 
> place in June, and Allied fighter-bombers and destruction of the
> French railways kept most of them out of action until two weeks after
> the invasion, still, they did great damage.

Yes. When they were operational, in good repair, had enough fuel, and 
weren't being "wasted".

>      Clearly it is vital to have better weapons than your enemy, not
> just more poorer ones.

Well, I think that cuts both ways.

I never though much of the Sherman. After all, it really was only a 
MEDIUM tank, whereas the Tiger was at least a semi-heavy tank. 

We really needed a number of good HEAVY tanks in Europe. When the T-
26 (if I remember the model number correctly) was introduced into the 
war MUCH too late and in much too small quantity to be very 
effective, it blew holes in every Tiger it came across. It was 
deadly. However, there was some General in the U.S. Army who thought 
it was a waste of resources. I forget his name.

The German Panther was another problem: it was too wide to be carried 
on normal railroad cars unless its outer road wheels were removed, it 
was too heavy, too slow, used too much fuel, was much too complex to 
build quickly, used too many resources, and there were never enough 
of them.

I remember a story I read somewhere a long time ago: when Germany and 
Russia were still allies, the Germans invited some Russian brass to 
view their latest armor, hoping to impress them and intimidate them.

The Russians kept asking them, "Where are all your BIG tanks?". The 
Germans began to get worried.

I too have always wondered about the effectiveness and reliability of 
German tank radios. I've never even seen a photo of one.

Ken W7EKB
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