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heretic88

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  1. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to Cleb in Kimchi armoured vehicles: K1, K2, K21 and other AFVs from Worse Korea   
    Not sure if I shared this video here or not. Either way ROK T-80Us very shortly after they were introduced to Korea in 1998.
     
     
  2. Tank You
    heretic88 got a reaction from Laviduce in Ukrainian Civil War Thread: All Quiet on the Sturgeon Front   
    I long time didnt post on this forum, didnt really want to, but the ignorance of some people made me do so.
     
    First, I ABSOLUTELY condemn this war! There were far, far better options to deal with ukraine.
     
    BUT!
     
    Even though Putin said lots of idiocy about the reasons to attack ukraine, he is right in some things.
    First, to the surprise of some ignorants, the ukrainian fascism is a REAL THING. Current ukrainian government not even tolerates, actively supports extremist groups. Russian, Hungarian, and also Jewish communities are frequently harassed in that country. Death threats are common against these people, sometimes unfortunately murders happen too. Where was the EU when these happened? Where was the NATO? Where was the international outrage? In the west, if someone is "misgendered", whole country is talking about it. In ukraine, these messages are totally accepted, nobody cares in the EU (even though EU politicians are 100% aware of their existence!)

     
    It happened a year ago if Im not mistaken. Where was the west?
     
    Also. Minsk agreements. Ukraine didnt even give a fuck about them, and never intended to comply. In the last few years, they began to be more and more provocatory. Russian or ukrainian attack was totally inevitable in the end.
     
    The conclusion is that Ukraine, is FAR, FAR from being innocent! And FAR from being a victim! Equally guilty as Putin at best. But probably more. Think about these, when reading shitloads of BS pouring from ukrainian propaganda...
    Also think about when a country's main national hero is a guy named Stepan Bandera...
  3. Tank You
    heretic88 got a reaction from Cobras in Ukrainian Civil War Thread: All Quiet on the Sturgeon Front   
    I long time didnt post on this forum, didnt really want to, but the ignorance of some people made me do so.
     
    First, I ABSOLUTELY condemn this war! There were far, far better options to deal with ukraine.
     
    BUT!
     
    Even though Putin said lots of idiocy about the reasons to attack ukraine, he is right in some things.
    First, to the surprise of some ignorants, the ukrainian fascism is a REAL THING. Current ukrainian government not even tolerates, actively supports extremist groups. Russian, Hungarian, and also Jewish communities are frequently harassed in that country. Death threats are common against these people, sometimes unfortunately murders happen too. Where was the EU when these happened? Where was the NATO? Where was the international outrage? In the west, if someone is "misgendered", whole country is talking about it. In ukraine, these messages are totally accepted, nobody cares in the EU (even though EU politicians are 100% aware of their existence!)

     
    It happened a year ago if Im not mistaken. Where was the west?
     
    Also. Minsk agreements. Ukraine didnt even give a fuck about them, and never intended to comply. In the last few years, they began to be more and more provocatory. Russian or ukrainian attack was totally inevitable in the end.
     
    The conclusion is that Ukraine, is FAR, FAR from being innocent! And FAR from being a victim! Equally guilty as Putin at best. But probably more. Think about these, when reading shitloads of BS pouring from ukrainian propaganda...
    Also think about when a country's main national hero is a guy named Stepan Bandera...
  4. Tank You
    heretic88 got a reaction from RobertV in Ukrainian Civil War Thread: All Quiet on the Sturgeon Front   
    I long time didnt post on this forum, didnt really want to, but the ignorance of some people made me do so.
     
    First, I ABSOLUTELY condemn this war! There were far, far better options to deal with ukraine.
     
    BUT!
     
    Even though Putin said lots of idiocy about the reasons to attack ukraine, he is right in some things.
    First, to the surprise of some ignorants, the ukrainian fascism is a REAL THING. Current ukrainian government not even tolerates, actively supports extremist groups. Russian, Hungarian, and also Jewish communities are frequently harassed in that country. Death threats are common against these people, sometimes unfortunately murders happen too. Where was the EU when these happened? Where was the NATO? Where was the international outrage? In the west, if someone is "misgendered", whole country is talking about it. In ukraine, these messages are totally accepted, nobody cares in the EU (even though EU politicians are 100% aware of their existence!)

     
    It happened a year ago if Im not mistaken. Where was the west?
     
    Also. Minsk agreements. Ukraine didnt even give a fuck about them, and never intended to comply. In the last few years, they began to be more and more provocatory. Russian or ukrainian attack was totally inevitable in the end.
     
    The conclusion is that Ukraine, is FAR, FAR from being innocent! And FAR from being a victim! Equally guilty as Putin at best. But probably more. Think about these, when reading shitloads of BS pouring from ukrainian propaganda...
    Also think about when a country's main national hero is a guy named Stepan Bandera...
  5. Tank You
    heretic88 got a reaction from delete013 in What the Hell is the Point of Interleaved Road Wheels?   
    Yes, definitely not as time consuming (at least on T-34) as in the case of the Tiger or Panther, but still not an easy task, far harder than changing a bogie on a Sherman or on a Panzer IV, or changing a torsion bar on a tank without interleaved road wheels. Some springs are more or less trouble free, but some are nasty. In case of the british tanks, well, suspension repair is horror, surely worse than interleaved stuff (tracks off, wheels off, side armor plate off). Brits liked all kinds of weird stuff
    So yes, you can bash the interleaved suspension, it indeed had problems. But it is unfair if you bash only that, when at the same time, there were other similarly less successful designs, like the Christie suspension. (in fact, you can still find some prototypes after the war with interleaved wheels, but absolutely nothing with Christie suspension)
     
  6. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    It's this right? All in all, to my knowledge is such situation considered as quite "accurate", and claims honest. You likely wouldn't think so, but scroll down and check claim chart. It is highly likely that several aircraft shoot at the same bomber at the same time, especially since formation attacks were a deliberate tactic, ensuring good results. I think an attacker would be attributed a kill each, but I am not sure.
    Some claims were actually refused.
    The attackers were scattered by mustangs afterwards, so they likely couldn't observe the final faith of the bombers and could have wrongly counted some surviving bombers as kills.
     
    Claims of Hand-Joachim Marseille are one of the most rigorously checked: Wikipedia has a nice chart of claims: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Joachim_Marseille#Victory_claims
     
    His claims are corroborated between 65%-75%, depending on the author, and are considered "relatively" accurate. Also note that there is quite some resistance in admitting the losses, such as 1 September 42.
  7. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    You put not a drop of though in considering that the tropes your indiscriminately accepted might be easily proven wrong? If you troubled yourself a tad more you would know that Luftwaffe had the most rigorous claim procedure among the belligerent countries, requiring a witness to confirm a claim. It was not unusual for an actual kill to be refused at the ministry due to breaking a procedure. Germans were also the only I know that sanctioned fake claiming.

    On the other hand, kill claims in RAF were considered a morale boost and even known overclaiming was deliberately ignored "to keep the spirits high". I assume I don't have to mention the US army air force.
     
    But hey, dirty Germans are gentlemen and don't push this topic that would make their former counterparts look bad.
     
    This genius logic, if there are more enemies I will shoot them more down right? Or isn't that I will shoot less since I will fight 5 planes instead of 1? So the only factor has to be? Aircraft or skill. Why not accept the most obvious explanation. Germans had better pilots that could do more sorties, had better schooling, better organisation and great planes = about hundred three digit aces.
     
    Yes Allies had some good pilots too.
     
    I'll correct this for you. Overclaiming was present in all air forces but German kills are the most credible, US the least, everybody offended. I you want a descriptive sample of national bias check this gem from Moran's video on air to ground tank claims:

     
    Various <Allied> studies showed that <their> planes had a negligent anti-tank abilities, especially the rocket equipped. Nobody tested German planes. What if Germans had better anti-tank air arm? You can't simply generalise.
  8. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Did he? Where?
    So what was it? Doubling claims or not counting at all? So what were the kill rings for? Days without food?
     
    Even if you discard post-war writing and propaganda stories you are still left with claims from combat reports. Those have nothing to do with propaganda or myth making and are dead serious stuff. Those claims align quite nicely with actual loss numbers in the east, adjusted for repaired tanks and with a variance of occasional double counting or non reported kills. They also align surprisingly well with British losses in Normandy.
     
    Anw, to my knowledge, kill claims were not institutionalised, as were in the air force and started as cumulative sums of stug battalions. They varied from unit to unit, some counting, some not. But the hobby was spread among dedicated tank killers, i.e. heavy tank battalions and panzerjägers.
     
    None of this is 100% reliable but there is no indication that these numbers were invented. Propaganda ministry, like in other countries, sought over-performers and made emboldened story around them, rounding up their kills or pinning platoon kills on one commander. Beyond that bling there were still top soldiers.
  9. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Who had better mobility, panther or pershing?
  10. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Underpowered, too slow, bad off road. Ground clearance was too low.
    Considering that it started as a medium and got steadily bigger it makes me believe that the designers exceeded the limits of their design. What they got was neither satisfactory heavy tank, nor a medium. Attempts to make it competitive against tiger B failed because the suspension was overloaded and the hull out of balance. Now, you mentioned those trials and I have nothing much to go with here apart from Hunnicutt and some public "truths". Might also have been a case of institutional inefficiency, who knows.
     
     
  11. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    You don't say..
  12. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Is this up in one of those 89 pages? I've yet to get through them all. We can discuss tank's role in combined arms tactics. Are any German tankers or panzergrenadiers here? I think contemporary tactics are pretty much ww2 with new vehicles.
  13. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Why are you people so bitter? Give him a break. Who cares about politics. History hobbies should be fun.
  14. Sad
    heretic88 got a reaction from Sten in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    @Jeeps_Guns_TanksGo to hell asshole... And you are trying to criticize anybody. You contributed nothing to this discussion, except declaring people with different opinions than yours as ignorant, and at the same time declare your wishful thinking as facts. I bet you didnt read any literature about stuff you claim to be expert of. And when you are totally out of arguments, first you steer the conversation to politics, and finally you insult me... Congratulations. You are a really toxic, sad person.
    As for the 88 in my user name... Maybe that I was born in 1988? But no, surely it was because politics... 
    I have nothing to do with nazis, I hate them. My point with mentioning bolshevist war crimes was to mock your attempt to derail the discussion, which was to this point, peaceful.
    But well, we learned something. Anybody who dares to say anything good about german equipment (pieces of metal... but surely possessed by the very soul of A.H.!), they are immediately nazi supporters... Looks like that now includes Spielberger, Jentz, and Doyle too! Well, now I understand why everything written in their books are ignored... 
    Again, congratulations for turning this topic to this mess.
  15. Funny
    heretic88 got a reaction from Ramlaen in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    @Jeeps_Guns_TanksGo to hell asshole... And you are trying to criticize anybody. You contributed nothing to this discussion, except declaring people with different opinions than yours as ignorant, and at the same time declare your wishful thinking as facts. I bet you didnt read any literature about stuff you claim to be expert of. And when you are totally out of arguments, first you steer the conversation to politics, and finally you insult me... Congratulations. You are a really toxic, sad person.
    As for the 88 in my user name... Maybe that I was born in 1988? But no, surely it was because politics... 
    I have nothing to do with nazis, I hate them. My point with mentioning bolshevist war crimes was to mock your attempt to derail the discussion, which was to this point, peaceful.
    But well, we learned something. Anybody who dares to say anything good about german equipment (pieces of metal... but surely possessed by the very soul of A.H.!), they are immediately nazi supporters... Looks like that now includes Spielberger, Jentz, and Doyle too! Well, now I understand why everything written in their books are ignored... 
    Again, congratulations for turning this topic to this mess.
  16. Funny
    heretic88 got a reaction from Jeeps_Guns_Tanks in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    @Jeeps_Guns_TanksGo to hell asshole... And you are trying to criticize anybody. You contributed nothing to this discussion, except declaring people with different opinions than yours as ignorant, and at the same time declare your wishful thinking as facts. I bet you didnt read any literature about stuff you claim to be expert of. And when you are totally out of arguments, first you steer the conversation to politics, and finally you insult me... Congratulations. You are a really toxic, sad person.
    As for the 88 in my user name... Maybe that I was born in 1988? But no, surely it was because politics... 
    I have nothing to do with nazis, I hate them. My point with mentioning bolshevist war crimes was to mock your attempt to derail the discussion, which was to this point, peaceful.
    But well, we learned something. Anybody who dares to say anything good about german equipment (pieces of metal... but surely possessed by the very soul of A.H.!), they are immediately nazi supporters... Looks like that now includes Spielberger, Jentz, and Doyle too! Well, now I understand why everything written in their books are ignored... 
    Again, congratulations for turning this topic to this mess.
  17. Controversial
    heretic88 got a reaction from Lord_James in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    @Jeeps_Guns_TanksGo to hell asshole... And you are trying to criticize anybody. You contributed nothing to this discussion, except declaring people with different opinions than yours as ignorant, and at the same time declare your wishful thinking as facts. I bet you didnt read any literature about stuff you claim to be expert of. And when you are totally out of arguments, first you steer the conversation to politics, and finally you insult me... Congratulations. You are a really toxic, sad person.
    As for the 88 in my user name... Maybe that I was born in 1988? But no, surely it was because politics... 
    I have nothing to do with nazis, I hate them. My point with mentioning bolshevist war crimes was to mock your attempt to derail the discussion, which was to this point, peaceful.
    But well, we learned something. Anybody who dares to say anything good about german equipment (pieces of metal... but surely possessed by the very soul of A.H.!), they are immediately nazi supporters... Looks like that now includes Spielberger, Jentz, and Doyle too! Well, now I understand why everything written in their books are ignored... 
    Again, congratulations for turning this topic to this mess.
  18. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Sure, today's standards. I am pretty sure no ww2 tank passes.
     
    Got any link to that?
     
    You know, it is not as if there was no vehicle, even heavier that had functional final drives. The fact that neither Germans nor the French attempted to fix them in over 10 years of use and that this was the principal combat vehicle, strongly indicates that this issue is overblown.
     
    Anw, I am not stubborn out of principle, I am simply not convinced. Also it would be much easier if there wasn't so many deliberately deceiving literature, pushing national biases around.
  19. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    100mm front hull under 60deg angle. That is no effective 200mm, especially not against German caped shells. The rest of the vehicle is 90 at negligent angles, compared to 80mm on tiger 1. Hence a tad more. The best about it are rounded angles and few flat surfaces, smth Soviets were good at. But anw, for Soviets was that enough to give trouble to panther's and tiger 1's and they finally solved their acute problem of being constantly outgunned at long ranges. Finally they could counter fire brigades that so easily dismantled Soviet breakthroughs before. But for that IS-2 had no spectacular performance, no double digit tank aces. Germans would be exhilarated if they could live with such a tank, they couldn't. 20-30 seconds reload. But what if facing 10 tanks? Not ideal.
    Engine powered turret rotation was unavoidable, not a wanted feature. I think anyone can see that. J version of Pz4 had none, just tells what Germans had to cope with.
     
    Because you read somewhere that in the second half of the war Germans lacked rare metals?
     
    Check the penetration tables? KwK42 is almost identical to 17pdr, with a lighter shell, less gunpower and higher speed. So far as I know this is exactly what one wants for higher reload, flatter shooting trajectory, less fumes and more ammo in a tank. That is all thanks to better gun powder, manufacturing and shell design. All belligerent countries featured similar caliber categories but German guns were almost by the rule always at least slightly better.
     
    Maybe they just didn't succeed? Maybe they lacked German skill? Leopard 1 came much late in time when solid steel armour had no effect anymore. The engine and transmission evolution also allowed for longer hulls. Since armour was irrelevant there was no need for overlapping wheels and by the 70ies, alloys in torsion bars allowed for 60tonne tanks without the complex arrangement. But heavy tanks were needed in 40s, not later and Germans could field them whereas Allies were stuck with obsolete infantry tanks and moving bunkers.
     
    That suspension was an interwar design. Ask yourself why all but the British bothered with torsion bars during or after war. As I understand it, British tanks just aren't maneuver vehicles. They are to occupy a good spot (hence good climb) and shoot at a distance (armour and firepower over mobility), then relocate. But good luck running away from Soviet "hordes".
     
    A mere moving bunker with overstressed drive train. That thing barely moved.
     
    Correct, I admit.
     
    It isn't mediocre lol, the numbers are still in its favour. There are a number of other technical advantages which I don't understand, so I will focus on it being shorter (less long), which allowed precisely what you mentioned later, centered turret and also more space for the crew. That is I believe, quite important for crew performance. Engine in a panther is pushed in one third while it is almost half of a t-34. This isn't my observation but that of German designers, all nicely explained in Spielberger's "Panther and its variants". Btw, Russians are until today obsessed with short drive train which reduces power loss when turning. This is perhaps the most ignored popular fact of tank design. Western tanks have quite some issues cooling the heat in transmission due to this fact.
     
    More stable, better weapon platform (in any direction), less suspension failures.
     
    Should I mention how horrendous losses t-34 and sherman incurred after 1942? I better not.
  20. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Well, I guess I have rather radically different opinion on German tanks than the community here. I am a total amateur, so whatever I write please don't take as holy truths. May I also remind that I don't claim that panther was the pinnacle of tank design. It obviously had issues. Anyways, let's do this..
     
     
    They used them as other countries without their own tank fleet - until the spare parts were available. I completely agree that they could have been complicated to use, don't get me wrong. They weren't designed because someone wanted to overengineer but you can't avoid the fact that no attempts were made to improve the tank.
     
    Every MBT today uses panthers armour philosophy, all or nothing, focus on frontal protection with addition of 60deg frontal arc. You enhance panthers turret side armour and add heavy side skirts to the frontal third of the hull sides and you have western armour arrangement of the 70-80 ies. This was a deliberate move. From 1943 on they had the only army that operated a mainstream medium tank with actually functioning armour, excellent armament and decent mobility. You can call it all mediocre all you will but criticism of a panther is unavoidably conditioned by its era in which everything else was worse! If you dislike Schachtellaufwerk you have to confront the fact that German tanks featured more armour, better relative mobility and better weapon platforms. What was a better alternative? Even a fairly good IS-2 only a tad better armour than tiger 1 whilst dispensing with a load of features. Turning radius, weapon stability, barrel depression, ammo storage, single piece ammo, reload speed are all things that matter in tank combat but maybe not so much for someone that doesn't expect a tank to have time to spend its ammo.
     
    I seriously doubt that any professional would consider D-25T a better weapon than either KwK42 or KwK43. D10 was afaik considered quite better but even that one could not match the long 8.8. I understand the big soviet calibres rather a necessity born out of resignation of the ammunition and cannon designers. Good HE shell was probably second requirement. People today spin in circles thinking that cracks in German armour are an indication of a good anti-tank weapon.
     
    Most late and immediate post war requirements evolved around Tiger B's 8.8 kwk and its armour. Most modern MBTs likewise focus on good mobility and have primarily anti-armour armament. You will perhaps notice that nobody managed to get the German performance out of their guns. 17pdr is the closest but at a cost of a heavier shell. Everyone else had to choose between custom ammo or bigger calibers.
     
    But let's not forget. French immediate post war medium and heavy tank development is all German designs (besides that fetish for scillating turrents). Lorraine 40t, Cannon D'Assault Lorraine, AMX-50.
     
    Centurion had panther's hard specifications. Two years younger tank with no advantage over a panther and which cut the edges at mobility and suspension (unless you consider horstman any credible tank suspension). If Germany wasn't collapsing it would compete with panthers with up to 120 mm armour and 8.8cm cannons. But all tanks suddenly look better after war because Germans designed no more, coincidence?
     
    Translate the weight difference into reliability, add logistics and you are not far off.
     
    As the heretic said, your stats and calculations are wrong. I got to 0.31 W/ccm for a HL230 and 0.26 for V-2 whereas I took 370 instead of 340kW. But more important is that the engine is also shorter. This means shorter hull, less metal for sides and shorter track lengts, which is crucial for any decent turning radiuses. Usually neglected is the fact that turning radiuses of shermans and IS-2 were giant and you can forget about any credible tactical maneuvering.
     
    No? Well, what was equal then? Neither T-44, Cent nor IS-3 were battle read by the end of the war and panthers were rolling around for 2 years by then. Anything else is pure conjecture.
  21. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Panther's only frontal weakness was the curved lower mantlet. Everything else was fine.
    A credible weapon beyond 500m? I think not. If you are so close then you ought to mind infantry rather than the tank.
     
    You got priorities all wrong. If a tank can't deal with vehicles then a single stug is enough for an attack to fail. Armored vehicles were the first and primary target if Allies hoped to achieve anything. If tanks can't accompany infantry then the latter has to expose themselves and we know for a fact that Allied infantry was as reluctant as ineffective in doing so. Weight of an explosive filling is secondary because you don't evaluate a tank by how well it fares against an MG nest. There are other weapons better suited for the job. The post war development clearly confirms this. Primary task of modern tanks is anti-armour combat, everything else seems rather an after thought.
     
    The strong focus on anti-tank capability shouldn't be taken out of the context. It was an obvious choice for Germans on western and eastern front. Maybe against a tank weak country they would have used something more explosive. Another factor is the wavering combined arms components, of which role had to be compensated by tanks and infantry.
     
    Nobody says that. It is still way ahead of anything it faced. Any other alternative to a panther is at least as bad or worse. Idea of an all pz4 or stug army in 1944 is plain unrealistic.
  22. Tank You
    heretic88 reacted to delete013 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    You guys are being a tad too critical. I sense an influence of usual internet "wisdom", which more too often is based on contemporary opinions, rather than the realities of the past time.
     
    Germans themselves admitted to the weak final drives, the tank was known to be delicate but that 150km average lifespan of final drives obviously lacks context if HJ's panther bataillon managed to drive 140km from Le Neuborg to the Normandy front without losing a single tank (https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://startpage.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1842&context=cmh).
     
    Another indication of reasons for short lifespans was that Guderian reported in 1944 on the final drive problems on the Eastern front in the mud season where, not surprisingly, all armored vehicles experiences high attrition.
     
    At the meeting of panzer commission on 23rd January 1945 it was established that broken final drives plague Pz4s, Panthers and Tigers almost equally (in numbers: 500 - 370 and roughly 100). (https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=236740)
     
    The French are for some reason considered independent evaluators but to my knowledge, despite their complaints they never attempted to remedy final drives, neither did they attempt to improve panthers at all. They just ran down the remaining pieces until new equipment arrived.
     
    The British made a few panthers post war for testing but they broke down before finishing the trials which together with the French indicates that they were not using them in the same way as Germans.
     
    The question to what extent was the real German problem the lack of spare parts and to what unreliability hasn't really been answered until today. Considering high attrition of armoured vehicles in ww2, intuition points to the former. I think by now we all know that Shermans' readiness rates were not really due to its reliability but rather sheer amount of replacements.
     
    Likewise, panthers had indeed a fairly short engine lifespan and it was a calculated risk in exchange for a group of benefits. It was small overclocked engine enabling high performance for small volume. German tanks were for it shorter, spacious, relatively lighter and more agile than contemporaries. But above all, they could carry actually effective armoured protection AND firepower, whereas Allied tanks only could have one. I think this is an underestimated fact. In 1944, German tanks had to compensate for air power and lack of artillery. Let's not ignore that panther was an entire generation above contemporaries and a certain trade off was unavoidable. If panther was mediocre, then what was everything else?
  23. Funny
    heretic88 got a reaction from Sturgeon in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    That was to show the double standards and hipocrisy. 
    One vehicle that had reliability problems, but generally performed well in combat is an utter piece of trash, one of the worst tanks ever.
    The other vehicle that also had just as many reliability problems, generally performed badly in combat, is a good piece of equipment... Of course, for some people, the first vehicle is a black sheep, and the second is a "holy cow" or something like that... 
  24. Funny
    heretic88 got a reaction from Jeeps_Guns_Tanks in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    That was to show the double standards and hipocrisy. 
    One vehicle that had reliability problems, but generally performed well in combat is an utter piece of trash, one of the worst tanks ever.
    The other vehicle that also had just as many reliability problems, generally performed badly in combat, is a good piece of equipment... Of course, for some people, the first vehicle is a black sheep, and the second is a "holy cow" or something like that... 
  25. Sad
    heretic88 got a reaction from Donward in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Its quite sad that it became such a popular trend to bash the Panther. It wasnt a bad tank at all. Recently, more myths were created than in the past half decade. Like the infamous "final drive that lasted for 150 kilometers". Not a single source supports it. On the other hand there is a report of a Bergepanther, (Panzer Tracts 16-1, Jentz & Doyle) with 4200 kilometers in its clock, and with original final drives! Am I saying that the french assessment is useless, contains lies? No, not at all. In my opinion, the 150km is simply a typo. Should be 1500km. Other sources indicate that this is close to the truth. But dont get me wrong, 1500km is still BAD. 
    Of course, the Panther had other problems, like being overengineered, costly and time consuming to build, requiring careful maintenance and skilled drivers. In tactical combat it had one design flaw that affected performance, is the lack of unity periscope for gunner. But still, it had many positives, and generally, performed well in combat.
    Also, lots of people forget about a very, very important fact, when they talk about the "total unreliability" of the Panther: Sabotage. For example, during the restoration of Littlefield's Panther, it was discovered that the fuel or cooling lines (not remember which) were stuffed with cigarette butts and other junk. And it was a quite common thing. No wonder that things didnt work as expected... 
    And frequently, when people bash the Panther, they forget that many other tanks suffered from similar, or even more serious problems. Like the mythical T-34, that is commonly believed to be the best tank of the war. It had its own share of serious defects: very low build quality (but not post ww2), debilitating reliability problems (extremely crude and bad transmission, no functioning air filters, bad cooling system). Its christie suspension is atrociously bad, provided a very rough ride (that I personally experienced. A T-55 is a luxury car compared to it), and took up lots of internal space. And finally, it was an ergonomic nightmare (85mm variants less so for commander and gunner), that greatly affected its performance in combat. 
     
     
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