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1 hour ago, Beer said:

Everyone can draw a nice thing on the paper. Considering how other German projects ended we can quite safely say that Panther II would end being something completely different than what it was on the paper. Paper projects are paper projects. Good for WoT but completely irrelevant for reality. 

This wasn't a drawing board prototype..

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You'd better not even start with arguments based on such stuff. 

2 is based on panther 1 and tiger b components, so entirely plausible thing. Thinned roof armour and lighter turret to compensate for thicker front. Not sure what they added to the drive train to get along with 50+ tonnes..

44 minutes ago, Beer said:

So it broke down 3x over 220 km without even going into hard terrain. 

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• asphalt highway: 58 km
• dirt roads: 162 km

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Dirt road: forest and field, wide, with a large amount of deep ditches, grades up to 10 degrees. The roads are muddy in places. External temperature was between 8-17 degrees Celsius, no precipitation.

How can you judge? Less slope than that at Pershing's trial but otherwise no other specific detail.

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The reliability, overall design and technological level of the components and assemblies of the Panther is less than that of the PzIII and PzIV.

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rapid wear on the (final) drive's gears

Seems like less reliable than Pz3-4 or Pershing. Weak engine and final drives. But nothing seems vehicle breaking, like the Brits want us to believe.

26 minutes ago, Toxn said:

What are you on about? The Panther broke down incessantly when the Soviets tested it:

http://www.tankarchives.ca/2014/04/panther-trials.html?m=1

"broke down three times"?

1 hour ago, Toxn said:

Also, since you seem determined to cling onto the idea that Panther's issues were going to be fixed at some point "if the war had gone on", you're dreaming. The tank was in service for around two years and never got the most glaring issues fixed, so expecting that to change is wishful thinking. It also had, as I've been at pains to point out, almost nothing in the way of upgrade potential.

Don't forget that Germans discontinued most of their regular projects by 1945 and switched to Volkssturm improvisations such as Hetzers and Volksjäger. But this has nothing to do with the design skill. If the country managed to function at it did in 1943 they would likely restart the panther 2 development and have them in 1945 if necessary. But the panther 2 proposed in 1943 was apparently botched due to satisfactory side plates against anti-tank rifles. With redesigned turret and suspension (likely removed double torsion bars) and increased frontal armour:

it was not needed. Later on only seriously disfunctional communication between Panzerkommission and the industry would be an alternative explanation.

If war went better for the Germans, Allies would face smth akin to this:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/firearmcentral/images/2/21/Panther_II.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20180503090747
I consider t-54 one of the best designs in tank history but panther 2 would be at least on the same level.

10 minutes ago, Toxn said:

Also, since you seem determined to cling onto the idea that Panther's issues were going to be fixed at some point "if the war had gone on", you're dreaming. The tank was in service for around two years and never got the most glaring issues fixed, so expecting that to change is wishful thinking. It also had, as I've been at pains to point out, almost nothing in the way of upgrade potential.

It's not like there exist a built panther 2.. But do you read you own link? Soviets have had no "glaring" issues beyond the engine. Engine got more or less fixed and for that short lifespan worked okay. But we made a construct based on two British tests, one opinion of "half of panthers in Normandy had broken final drives", French post war opinion and Guderians report on failing final drives in all tanks and issues in the mud. And this construct is then reduced to the worst case of 150km lifespan, backed up by the interpretation that train based relocation was due to entirely failed drive train design.

So why didn't panther broke down on Soviet trials? How did the British manage to ruin 6 vehicles? Why was suspension estimated as good by the Soviets, while the British experienced troubles?

10 minutes ago, Toxn said:

If by some chance the war had gone on until 1946 (presumably because the Americans convinced the Russians that watching nuclear weapons hitting Berlin was a life-changing experience or something) then the Panther would have simply found itself as the same unreliable beast from before, only now facing hordes of T-44s, IS-3s, Pershings and Centurions. It wouldn't have been pretty.

And pershings would be the smallest of a problem.

11 minutes ago, Toxn said:

Pershing was a medium though.

That moved like a heavy?

11 minutes ago, Toxn said:

I'm not sure how you get to the last part. Pershing had very well laid-out ammunition storage and a shell casing that was actually a bit shorter than Panther's.

Nono, entire shell length matters. 5kg lighter and 7cm shorter for the same penetration.

Btw, did pershing have automatic casing ejection?

11 minutes ago, Toxn said:

As for estimation, that's pure guesswork on your part.

Yes, entirely. Why don't you make yours. Would be interesting to compare.

2 hours ago, Toxn said:

So another side note: this game also works really well in reverse...

You remind me of Liddell Hart, insisting how reality of German maneuver warfare conformed to his ideas.

15 hours ago, Beer said:

Panther was roughly 3 tons heavier than Pershing. It's really strange when you compare Panther with medium tanks and Pershing with heavies when Pershing is lighter than Panther which itself is 10-20 tons heavier than other medium tanks of the war. 

 

By the way in our post war army Panther had a designation "Heavy tank T-42/75 N" and was garaged (not actively used) in a heavy tank regiment.  

The fact that German medium has the weight of an allied heavy and heavies go beyond 50tonnes tells a lot about the discrepancy in automotive technology. Panther was medium because of mobility. No way around it. If armour was bad then 

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Do you suggest that Panther's no observation device for the gunner is better? In Panther the gunner with his extremely narrow field of view located half a meter bellow the commander's cupolla had zero situation awarness

No need for emotional sweeping statements. The topic is quite interesting to discuss and by no means one sided. Let's see the benefits of German aiming arrangement.

- TZF 12 had 28deg fov on 2,5x magnification. This is a pretty comfortable observation device.

- Zooming from 2,5x to 5,0x is much smoother than shifting from periscope to another device.

- better and more reliable optics

- Together with convenient distance measuring procedure and flat ballistic curve it makes up the highest first hit chance system of the war. Panther's gunner had a cumulative 1km distance error margin on 1km for open targets, giving almost 100% hit probability.

- Commander had better vision and he primarily spots and delegates targets.

Incalculating the downsides:

- clumsy turret turning, dependent on the driver and the engine

- no panoramic periscope

- the only sight bound to the turret direction 

- sights of the rest of the crew is fixed

- lack of duplicate turning switch for the commander

one can speculate that in theory, panther had somewhat worse aiming arrangement. An advantage long range and disadvantage short-mid range. The crucial thing is how much weight each of these factors have. I believe without tankers we can really only guess.

I would imagine smth like this:

1. Both identify a target at about the same speed (panther's commander has advantage but pershing has better help from other crew members)

2. pershing turns the turret and the gunner acknowledges the target faster

3. panther's gunner zooms on the target and estimates distance better and hits the target faster (higher chance of first hit, maybe faster reload due to shell size).

On shorter range the distance estimation falls away and the turret turning and target acknowledgement are aggravated for the panther and vice-versa.

I consider that the link engine-driver-gunner the weakest, because two important roles interrupt each other.

The important question is now what ranges did combat take place. Most ranges in W.Europe were apparently fall in two groups, ~300m or ~700m.

The unresolved questions are: pershing's hit accuracy and from what distance is range estimation relevant for its M3. Pershing's aiming procedure. Sherman's was afaik quite slow. Rough range estimate by commander, ranging shot then corrected shot. But Pershing has high velocity cannon, flatter curve.

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This must be the biggest joke of this forum ever. The result of that skill of the designers were vehicles which had around 1/3 larger armoured volume and had a weight of a class above their counterparts made by other countries. 

And better armour, armament and still better mobility. And all you want to compare it with are tanks that were too late for war. You don't actually believe that panthers wouldn't get upgraded too?

The height could have been indeed lower and transmission and suspension simpler, as we all agree, I believe. But with transmission in the back the nice agility goes away. It's all reasonable trade-offs for dire years of 1944-45 but not for 1943 when the decisions were made. Later the decisions have more to do with production economy than design.

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13 tons lighter than Panther, much smaller, faster, yet better armoured T-44 was roughly one year newer than Panther. It was officially addopted by RA on 23rd November 1944 but there were 3 brigades equipped with T-44 already since 15th September 1944. There were around 1000 T-44 fielded by May 1945. The fact that it wasn't used in combat doesn't make it a post-war vehicle. It was just easier for the service and logistics to stick with the T-34/85 in the actual combat units (which also tells you that T-34/85 was considered good enough to deal with the Germans). 

Weren't there only <2k produced and about 2-300 until may 45? But yeah, "introduced" in november 44. What does that say about Soviet equipment procurement?

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It's somewhat weird to criticise Pershing armor layout when there were actually only two penetrations of Pershing in the WW2 (with one tank written off). Sure small number of vehicles was used but only two were penetrated (one by direct KwK-36 hit into the gunner's sights and the other by PaK-43 hit to the lower front plate) hence why saying that its armor was insufficient is unfounded. 

Here we are, at never penetrated in battle meme. Is typical of US scene. Isn't written, doesn't exist. Then by coincidence are issues conveniently absent in the literature.

(Up) Panther's cupola periscope. Also on tigers and stugs.

(Down) The panthers dead angle when buttoned up. Not as bad but clearly blind to what is happening near the vehicle.

Compared to US cupola:

http://www.theshermantank.com/wp-content/uploads/COMMANDERS-CUPOLA-7054771-ASSEMBLED-VIEW-IMPROVED-flat-918x1600.png

Comparison of drive train and turret arrangements. Showcasing the balanced but high panther hull and compact t-55.

1 hour ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

Pulling stupid shit out of your ass, then putting one quote from a book you don't seem to have read, does not make your arguments better.   You claiming the cupola was bad when it was was universally liked on the Sherman and Pershing, just shows wrong you are and your just making up.  I'd say you were a Troll, using the "Dumb Troll" technique, but that may be giving you to much credit.

Sorry for sabotaging your Germany-bashing thread.

Universally liked is irrelevant if you had none before. Today Abrams uses "German" cupola arrangement..

2 hours ago, Toxn said:

The Soviet tests are linked in my earlier following post.

Yep got them.

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Different standards may be the root cause here. The Americans expected their vehicles to perform like medium tanks in all respects: operational and strategic mobility, speed, road marches and flotation. They also expected them to be movable by narrow-gauge rail and to cross pontoon bridges. The Soviets, being unburdened by such expectations, merely compared vehicles in the same weight class.

Focus on strategic mobility is obvious. Much less on tactical. I do agree that Soviets really tailored their tanks to fit their numbers and terrain towards Europe at the expense of other features.

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As I said - nice to have more than anything else. Being able to actually back out of a fight rather than either stay in place or bail out under fire is nice.

 

Oh, so better armour penetration (~10-15mm) at range, with a worse HE shell? 

What numbers did you take? Isn't that for 30deg angle?

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Okay, so:

1) your suggestion is dumb - moving the turret ring back by making the vehicle longer would just make it heavier, compounding the issue; and

Ideally it wouldn't be longer. The difference is in the skill of the designers. Germans paid attention to it and had good crew compartment to engine bay ratio. More choice for turret placement and more space for complex gearbox. Ergo, throwing transmission in the back wasn't as straightforward as people  want to believe. Long after ww2 were there only two general solutions to the issue, either extending the hull and making the vehicle heavier and less agile or simplifying the steering with another heap of downsides. This is why transversely mounted transmissions are an achievement. Only with 1000+ PS engines was the power loss at turning reasonably solved.
 

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2) M26E5 managed to increase the armour to Tiger 2 levels all around without sacrificing balance. It didn't get produced in any numbers because, again, the Americans wanted mobile vehicles rather than impenetrable ones. 

With zero test info or anything beyond a prototype, I am fairly convinced that it didn't work. If ordinary pershing moved reasonably it couldn't with a few tons more.

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The GAF was compact, powerful and reliable (again, though, not enough for the Americans. Hence M46). The end result was something like 2HP/t difference between Panther and M26, with the automatic transmission of the M26 making up a lot of the difference in practice by dint of allowing the driver to simply put foot when needed rather than babying gears and clutches.

GAF was good for a sherman. Let's be honest, it wasn't in the HL230 class, with or without regulator. Panther's steering was quite more advanced and an important part of tactical mobility. Dispensing with it makes the designer's life much simpler but that of a tanker worse. I think being able to have more free leg space is much less important than being able to turn and drive out of opponents sight.

1 hour ago, Toxn said:

My god man, watching you bend over backwards to defend Panther and then turning straight around and drubbing other vehicles for lesser faults is ridiculous.

 

We have, in this exact instance, reliability reports that are directly comparable, and in every instance the Panther is a dog and Pershing is fine:

http://www.tankarchives.ca/2018/03/pershing-heavy-by-necessity.html

 

(direct report here: http://www.tankarchives.ca/2014/04/panther-trials.html)

 

M26 was, again, mediocre. Certainly as a product of a long-running development program which nonetheless had to be rushed into service to fulfil a seemingly pressing need (do we have to keep hitting you over the head with the parallels here?).

And yet it was better by most standards than Panther.

Thanks for the links! Especially interesting is the Pershing test. It gives better impression on mobility. I am confused as to why the mobility is so emphasized in American literature. Seems fine, except that off road speed test was not performed and the agility was a problem.
The test about the panther is however seems quite positive. Apart from confirming the inability to neutral steer it has few of the British problems. It confirms my assumption that the British tests are quite lackluster. I don't know how you consider panther worse. Evaluated as a heavy tank, Pershing clearly didn't impress with firepower nor armour. Panther on the other hand seems good in this respect, even if it is medium. Plus it was nimble.

6 minutes ago, Toxn said:

I went and re-watched Chieftain clambering around in there, as well as read Soviet reports on M26 (they claimed that the commander's station was a bit tight but otherwise had no issues). Seems pretty fine to me, especially given that Panther achieved less with an even larger hull. Oh, and just to add - the Soviets happily drove this supposedly unreliable beast through 500km of smashed-up terrain and only broke an oil pump.

As I said, nothing special, while cent is more comfy.
It would be nice to know that Soviet testing better. Link? So why did Americans have so many troubles? Poor off road mobility is but in every book on Pershing. Details are as usually scarce.

6 minutes ago, Toxn said:

Two sights is a good idea for a number of reasons - panoramic is good for seeing over obstacles (mounted higher in turret) while backup can be used to check that the gun tube isn't aimed at something solid. It also provides a measure of redundancy in case one sight or the other gets hit. Redundancy is also key to the radioman's position - provides a way to move if the driver gets shot, as well as allowing him to take a rest during road marches and the like. It's not strictly necessary, perhaps, but not bad.

With such armour, if tank gets hit to incapacitate the driver or gun sight, then the crew bails. I would understand if it was some exceptional vehicle.

6 minutes ago, Toxn said:

I've not heard much complaining about the commander's cupola.

Panoramic telescope windows vs. direct vision slits.

6 minutes ago, Toxn said:

28g fill vs. 137g. ~120mm penetration at 500m vs ~160mm.

"same effect"

kwk42, not 40, please.

6 minutes ago, Toxn said:

This is non sequitur logic - None of these statements follows from the other. Bigger bay = more upgrade potential. Turret ring diameter is 175cm - intermediate between Panther and Centurion. Plus the damn thing obviously had upgrade potential, given that the Super Pershing had a bigger gun and 4 extra tonnes of armour.

Upgunning or uparmouring overturned the suspension balance and ended up similar to the jumbo. Super pershing was leaning forward. If turret was more to the back however..

6 minutes ago, Toxn said:

We've dealt with this - mobility on a purely tactical level is mostly the same as Panther. Mobility on every other level (operational, strategic) is infinitely better. So if this is "poor" (which I'm willing to grant) then...

No decent engine, no tactical mobility. Unless there is some remarkable explanation that I do not know of..

6 minutes ago, Toxn said:

Biased how? I just said that it was mediocre and then jokingly gave it a score out of 10. I never said anything about it being the "equal" to anything - a statement which is almost meaningless anyway.

My bad then.

On 3/2/2021 at 7:00 AM, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

This is why I added the month to the original question. Operate a Battalion of Perishing's and Panthers under similar conditions, and even with similar supply systems, the Pershing Battalion will have more running, combat ready tanks at the end of the month. Working on the Pershing would be so much easier, it would give it the edge.

Pershing engines burned out and died in Korea. This is akin to early panthers.
The comparison in context of late ww2 and the numbers is reasonable but putting pershings and panthers on equal ground is just cruel.

On 3/2/2021 at 12:10 PM, Toxn said:

 

This discussion has actually given me a renewed appreciation for the M26.

 

It's lower and shorter than Centurion or Panther, has worse frontal hull protection than the latter (but better side, top, turret, rear protection) and is generally more comfy than either. It's gun is perfectly fine, and has decent HE capability (unlike the other two). The soft factors (crew comfort, lots of viewing devices, a low and high-magnification gun sight, roof MG mounts, raised driver's seat, duplicated driver's controls, large engine bay hatches, ammunition layout etc) are all nice.

I never heard any praise of Pershing's comfort. Apart from broad turret ring, it seems rather cramped. Cent on the other hand is pretty famous for its spaciousness. It is also the biggest.

Pershing had the richness of dubious redundancies. Why two gun sights? Why did the radioman have a reserve steering set? Why didn't it have two level magnification in a gun sight? This makes it so much easier to observe and aim. Commander's cupola is useless for observation. Those glass slits certainly don't offer good vision.

Caped AP shells are bigger but offer about the same effect as smaller PzGr39.

Engine bay should have been smaller, not bigger. It pushed the turret to the front and sealed any chances of an upgrade. Armour angle is also smaller due to this.

Mobility is obvious also an issue and a medium with poor agility is an easy target.

Turret form is sub par. It features plenty of nice vertical surfaces and the inverted heart form makes the cheeks quite vulnerable to hits from 30deg angles. Mantlet also features the panther's shot trap.

I seriously doubt it is a match.

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Overall, I'd say that the common historical verdict on the Pershing is more or less correct: it was an interim vehicle, advanced in some ways over its predecessor but not fully developed and lacking in certain areas. Even so, I'd say that it's the most balanced and usable of the three late-war heavy mediums. A solid 6/10 to the Cent 1's 5 or the Panther's 4. The T-44, for reference, is more like a 6.5-7, while the first-run T-54 is more like an 8.

As biased as usual. How about an honest opinion by an American officer from Hunnicutt's book?

- The Pershing story might well be summarized by the words of Captain Elmer Gray replying to the tank
crews at Aachen when they asked if the Pershing was equal to the German King Tiger and Panther. His answer was, "Hell no, but it is the best tank we have yet developed and we should have had it a year earlier".

2 hours ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

What's really pathetic, is they had examples of good books on Armor, the Books by Hunnicutt, but still produced basically, propaganda, picture books for scale modelers and people who like poorly designed Nazi weapons. 

What convinced you that Germans produce propaganda and Hunnicutt or US authors don't?

3 hours ago, holoween said:

Im currently a tanker in the german army.

 

Broadly speaking the tactics are similar. A tank attack looks basicaly the same in 1944 as it does in 2020 just slower and less deadly. A simple defense would also look similar but be fought with more mobility with frequent position changes.

 

The biggest change is that today a tank has a more narrow focus. Anti infantry work is left to pzgrenns and their ifvs if possible and anti tank/ifv work is the main job of the tank. We carry a mojority of apfsds and some heat and no proper he round even though it exists already.

Thanks for this valuable input.

2 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

Do you believe the Germany army was clean of war crimes?  The honorable germans claim that too.  What nazis do you not believe? 

Actually I don't. If there is smth that German officers indeed did lie quite reliably is war crimes. Or better, tried to hide them. They were ashamed of them.

9 minutes ago, Beer said:

 

You just contradicted your previous statement. The whole point was that Luftwafe inflated numbers just like everyone else. You claimed it didn't, I showed you a proof they did. Simple as that. 

 

Anyway this is off topic which has nothing to do with German AFV. 

It is. Let's quit.

44 minutes ago, Beer said:

 

That rigorous system doesnť hold water when you study particular engagements. I give one example because that is very well known to me. 

 

29th August 1944 an air battle over Czechoslovak territory along the today's Czech/Slovak border. Take into account that this battle took place over German-controlled territory, all wreckage was quickly found and nearly all Allied pilots who survived on parachutes were captured (several were hidden by locals until Red army came). The real losses are 100% documented from archives, from found wreckage etc. and all names of shot down crews are known. 

 

Luftwaffe pilots were awarded 19 Abschuss, 7 Herausschuss and 1 eingültige Vernichtung. 

 

The real losses were 9 B-17 shot down, 1 B-24 crashed for technical reasons (outisde of the battle area), 4 B-17 heavily damaged and 2 B-17 lightly damaged. No P-51 was shot down. German losses were 9 Bf-109 and 4 Fw-190 (4 Bf-109 due to broken engine, all the rest but one shot down by P-51). The US awards are not known to me unfortunately. 

 

So the Germans were awarded more than double the actual kills while they must have known that the number is way too high. 

 

 

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.

3 hours ago, Beer said:

 

In a way it was indeed possible to reach such numbers but we can safely bet they were inflated - after all they were inflated for all sides as deep studies of particular engagements show. To be fair numbers of kills by US bomber crews are probably the most inflated and I guess it was done knowingly to raise morale of the gunners as well. 

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.

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The second reason, why, is that to have huge number of kills you need to have someone to shoot down.

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.

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As the war went on the number of Germans flying around went so low in comparison to now overwhelming numbers of Allied planes that towards the end of the war some Allied pilots probably never even entered an aerial combat. Best scoring pilot of the Battle of Britain Josef František was credited with 17 sure+1 probable kills in 28 days. The elite French Groupe de chasse I/5 was credited with 71 kills with a loss of only one dead own pilot during the Battle of France (many were shot down but survived and fought again). I.e. in desperate situation against enemy with superior numbers top Allied pilots scored enormous number of kills as well (and their kills were of course also inflated). 

Yes Allies had some good pilots too.

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In the end I would say that the numbers of aerial kills could be proportionally correct but they were for sure inflated on all sides (that is normal in every war, US kills in Vietnam were grossly inflated 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:

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What I don't believe however is tank kills of pilots like Erich Rudel. Various studies showed that armor losses to airforce were minimal during the WW2. The tests showed that destryoing a tank with WW2 aircraft was extremely difficult even on a static tank without AA fire.  

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.

11 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

Funny you mention this, Otto Carius mentioned that they routinely doubled or even tripled their kill counts during the war for propaganda purposes.

Did he? Where?

11 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

Yeah the smart money is they're completely fake.

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.

27 minutes ago, Donward said:

Wait...

Panther says what?

Who had better mobility, panther or pershing?

On 2/25/2021 at 6:49 PM, DogDodger said:

Germany was never going to out-produce its enemies, so a strategy of "qualitative" enhancement was logical, but it still seems that discretion is the better part of valor in some areas, especially when your tanks are expected to fire from the short halt.

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 you please expand on what you mean by Pershing was not a finished vehicle as a medium? Thanks.

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.

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One was designed, but it seems it was not possible to actually manufacture it in the numbers needed to install on the new medium tank. Spielberger notes an epicyclic final drive had been tested successfully, but "a shortage of gear cutting machinery for the hollow gearing prevented this type this type of final drive from being mass produced." So spur gears with weakish steel were used by necessity.