Jeeps_Guns_Tanks

Likely, the kill claims are taken as a confession. In many court systems, a confession means the defendant accepts the validity of the charge, and therefore the substance of the charge does not need to be proven, only the guilt of the defendant. 
 

I sense a dick-slapping is coming soon... 

Last time I checked, reading the forum, Jeeps has contributed hundreds of sourced documents on tanks including detailed engine diagrams of rare variants that are on this very forum. 
How many of the articles in this forum have you read? Have you read all 89 pages of this topic?
Yes? No?
 
Also, he's a moderator here for a reason.
 
You are NOT a moderator here for a reason.
 
You're here because we are enjoying baiting a clueless Wehraboo who is white knighting for a literal war losing tank design. We like Wehraboo hunts. It's what we do.
 
Again, you are here at discretion. 
 
Protip: It is OK to be wrong on the Internet. Again. It is OK to be WRONG on the Internet (like you are at this moment). Many of us had Wehraboo tendencies as well when we were young and stupid, like you are right now. Perhaps it is time to reevaluate your opinions? 

I did?
 
Man, I've really lost a few steps since I had a kid 

Reading Wages of Destruction is an eye-opener in more than one way. Glad to see it being seriously discussed here

The main limiting factor (I think also according to Tooze) was that there were no skilled people to take over the industry of the occupied countries while locals were considered to be untermensch (and the terror used against them certainly couldn't make them loyal). Germany meanwhile didn't have enough specialists to be used abroad, general over-conscription of the German population didn't help too. During the war even the number of common German workers in German domestic industry went down by several millions and it had to be replaced by slave labor which was used on all levels of the economy. The economies of most of the occupied countries were not only nearly unexploited but they were even basically left to die from starvation (even French industry was nearly unused and it wasn't even allocated resources like coal). In the end it meant that while the empire grew in size the industrial and manpower base stayed nearly the same as pre-war which is of course a perfect receipt to loose the war. 
 
In Soviet union it didn't work for simple reason - there was no equipment. The Soviets either evacuated or destroyed everything and the local population was basically subject of genocide so there was anyway noone to work. There was a weird situation that during Operation Barbarossa Luftwaffe was not allowed to bomb Soviet industry to allow using capturing factories (they didn't have capacity for that anyway as was proven later) but nothinng of use was captured. 
 
IMHO It worked basically only in Czechoslovakia and Austria. Austria joined Germany basically willingly but its industry was very weak. Czechoslovakia was more complicated but there was still a lot of local Germans involved in the country's industry already before the war so it was much easier to be taken over - the skilled responsible and loyal people were gained together witht the country just like hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers who happily joined Wehrmacht and SS in the first moment together with weapons - it's unfortunately true that Bohemian Germans were overwhelmingly Nazi - 43% of all local German popuation was SdP party mebers by March 1939 and the overall support was near total (SdP was basically NSDAP in Czechoslovakia). Also the country was occupied before the war started so that there was much more time to create effective control. Most of the workers were however Czechs or slaves and they deliberately often worked as slow as possible and sabotages were a thing too (even in design stage of some weapons - usually indirect through letting known weak properties to get into production or slowing down testing processes with various issues). Still it was the only occupied country where large industry worked for the German war machine. 
 
It's anyway staggering how badly organized the industry was in Germany alone especialy the AFV production, I think that automated welding was not introduced at all, the production was more like a pre-war handcraft manufacture than the real mass-production of USA and USSR (it worked quite well with fighter aircraft though). I was once told that the Nazi leadership was too afraid of the industry tycoons so they tried not to interfere in their affairs. 
 
In the end we get again to the point that the best industrialized activity of WW2 Germany was indeed the mass murder... 

A little off topic but I have read that aircraft production stats in WW2 Germany were inflated because they counted aircraft destroyed at the factory and rebuilt twice.  I forgot the source on that.  Maybe someone else has knowledge of it.
 
Adam Tooze is the source for this.  The limiting factor on German WW2 armaments production was steel.  They could not produce more ships, planes, tanks, shells, or machine tools without lowering production of one or more of the others.  This is despite conquering the steel production of most of Europe.  It seems like grossly incompetent management.  
 
I posted a video a few weeks ago that contains an analysis of German management of their piston aeroengines.  TLDR:  Gross incompetence on a staggering level.
 
As for the Panther, does anyone have the source comparing the number of hoses and number of different diameters of hoses in a Panther engine vs a Sherman?  I saw it on YT (forgot which vid) and it was staggering how much more complex the Panther was.
 
I'm an older guy and most of the books we had access to back in the day were implicitly pro-German.  Seeing the internet was like being the unfrozen caveman from Saturday Night Live.  Even neanderthals like us Gen X'ers can see the facts and make good analysis now that we have the internet.  I don't see why so many guys who grew up with the internet admire the German equipment.

It would be really interesting to compare readiness rates for M26s in Europe versus the ones that went to Korea. It would also be interesting to compare the Army M26s sent to Korean to the Marines, since the Marine tanks had been purchased right after WWII and put in storage. 
 
I'm sure what little US Army had in funds for spares went to the units in Europe. The stories of the Army having to refurbish Gate Guard Tanks, just goes to show you have close to the bone the Army had been cut by the Truman admin. Korea came just at the right time to show just how unprepared the US Military under Truman was to fight even a minor war.  If I recall right, Truman cut the Defense Department back to Pre WWII levels. 

Tiger was highly specialized vehicle which was indeed good when it was used as breakthrough vehicle in well prepared ofensive actions but even when I hate any sort of "best" choices Tiger absolutely can't be the one because... 
 
1) It was hand-crafted vehicle which required absolutely enormous man hours and production cost
2) It worked well only in very specialized roles and in case of very well prepared actions
3) It didn't work at all in hastily planned actions and in difficult terrain, way too many Tigers were lost to mud, sand or river crossings
4) It had limited effect on German war effort - you don't fight a war to make an impression on future fanboys but you fight to win 
5) It had enormous fuel consumption in situation when what was missing the most was fuel 
6) It had very poor strategical and operational mobility which is very important when you fight on thousands of kilometers of several fronts in the same time
7) It was very difficult vehicle for mainteanance 
8) It was near impossible vehicle to recover when stuck or broken down on the battlefield 

Why can't you wehraboos fucks simp for actually decent G*rm stuff like the FW-190 and the FG-42? Instead you always put the hot trash in the pedestal instead as if you drinking ze-propaganda-b koolaid laced with pervitin about the wunderwaffe.

@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.

Of course, I took it as a figurative statement. What I was hoping to illustrate, though, was that despite being ~17,000 lb heavier than an HVSS M4A3 and having essentially the same engine, the T26E1 was a large improvement in cross-country mobility with just a single torsion bar supporting each road wheel pair. The Panther's system doubtlessly provided a good and stable ride, but should the improvement over a single-bar system have justified its implementation? 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. Could you please expand on what you mean by Pershing was not a finished vehicle as a medium? Thanks.
 
Although tank maintenance was a struggle for all US tank types in Korea, especially in the first year of the conflict, the M26 still showed itself to be the least reliable in that theater. To be fair, many of the M26s shipped to Korea were in poor condition and some overdue for overhauls, so the M26's performance there may be an outlier...
 
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.

The reliability problems with the Pershing were solved fairly fast from what I've read, and the tanks on the Zebra Mission are not all that different than the ones that served in Korea. The only big item I can think of is the final drive housing braces.  The longstanding problem that was never worked out was a bad driver could cause fan belts to pop off.  US standards for reliability were so far ahead of the Germans, the M26 would have been considered almost impossibly reliable to them. 

@delete013: The following is off topic but it shall make you understand what reliability means on an example from today. Today the common projected failure rate in automotive is 5 sigma, i.e. 233 failures per 1 milllion parts during the service life (sometimes 4, sometimes 6 is required). If you turn it upside down, it means that projected service life is what 99,98% of all parts can withstand. In other words, if taken by today's automotive standards if just 2 Panthers of all produced broke down at 150 km the service life of the vehicle would be considered to be 150 km. It doesn't matter that some parts can do more. What matters is those parts which can't do what is required.  
 
I am well aware that this example doesn't consider WW2 quality requirements - it's just an illustration of what reliability means.  

Go fuck yourself.  If you think pointing out the Nazi Germans were only truly good at one thing, and that one thing was Mass Murder, has anything to do with politics, you're a strait up Nazi Apologist. Politics and Mass murder are not supposed to mix unless you're a Nazi asshole or a commie.   
 
And real smart argument you fucking twat, "hey look, if your going to bring up war crimes about my favorite war time powers, the Nazi, I'll totally own  you by bringing up Soviet Atrocities".    
 
Here's a clue, no one here admires to soviet union or their war crimes. A few of us are not so shot through with Nazi Propaganda, we can talk about the T-34 and soviet equipment without defending the regime.  
 
What's the 88 in your name stand for? Normally I wouldn't suspect the person with 88 in their name of being a Nazi Apologist or worse, but your posts sure warrant it.  

Go fuck yourself.  If you think pointing out the Nazi Germans were only truly good at one thing, and that one thing was Mass Murder, has anything to do with politics, you're a strait up Nazi Apologist. Politics and Mass murder are not supposed to mix unless you're a Nazi asshole or a commie.   
 
And real smart argument you fucking twat, "hey look, if your going to bring up war crimes about my favorite war time powers, the Nazi, I'll totally own  you by bringing up Soviet Atrocities".    
 
Here's a clue, no one here admires to soviet union or their war crimes. A few of us are not so shot through with Nazi Propaganda, we can talk about the T-34 and soviet equipment without defending the regime.  
 
What's the 88 in your name stand for? Normally I wouldn't suspect the person with 88 in their name of being a Nazi Apologist or worse, but your posts sure warrant it.  

Go fuck yourself.  If you think pointing out the Nazi Germans were only truly good at one thing, and that one thing was Mass Murder, has anything to do with politics, you're a strait up Nazi Apologist. Politics and Mass murder are not supposed to mix unless you're a Nazi asshole or a commie.   
 
And real smart argument you fucking twat, "hey look, if your going to bring up war crimes about my favorite war time powers, the Nazi, I'll totally own  you by bringing up Soviet Atrocities".    
 
Here's a clue, no one here admires to soviet union or their war crimes. A few of us are not so shot through with Nazi Propaganda, we can talk about the T-34 and soviet equipment without defending the regime.  
 
What's the 88 in your name stand for? Normally I wouldn't suspect the person with 88 in their name of being a Nazi Apologist or worse, but your posts sure warrant it.  

This has been a successful Wehraboo Hunt. 
Their impenetrable Wehraboo skulls, harder even than Krupp steel shall adorn our lodges. comieboo younglings shall listen in awed silence while grizzled hunters recount their kills as the Wehraboo beast flesh sizzles over the campfire.
As a wise woman once said, long ago on the television, “It’s a Good thing”.

Ohohoh, you'd like to be a moderator would you? I can arrange that.

I know, I've read that piece. Just had DB been able to keep their design independence it was a lot more promising. Said independence is of course, the biggest obstacle to them winning in the first place.
 
 
I know the new turret didn't fit, DB designed their own and the Rheinmetall-provided turret as used on production Panthers wasn't a terribly good design in any case. The late war efforts at a Schmalturm were actually *reviving* the general concepts DB was working on for their turret. More cramped is relative, as that would depend on how the internal arrangement is laid out - on paper Panther has lots of room, in practice the internal layout is a trainwreck and wastes this. Go watch Moran stumble around the various positions.
 
The cheap but bad leaf spring bogies carried the German army on their back on the endless Panzer IVs and derivations. Which were actually largely reliable, and simple to repair unlike the doubled-torsion-bar set up on Panther. But yes, I had forgotten that the DB did have a simple interleaved setup (only 2 layers, of single road wheels).
 
And you can hardly say that politics didn't play a role - Maybach aggressively pushed against diesels to maintain their AFV monopoly, MAN enthusiastically wooed Kniepkamp and crammed as many of his ideas as they could into their changing proposals. MAN did everything they could to please as many other major firms, while DB basically went it alone.

You are argueing with Guderian on the internet in 2021. I doubt he hears you. 
 
Military History Visualized by the way dug out of archives that creating a T-34 was indeed a topic and one of things officially asked by  Wehrmacht towards the industry in late 1941 but the whole idea was rejected. And it is a historical truth that wording "Absolute Überlegenheit" (Absolute superiority) was used in regards to T-34 and there was no request to copy KV. 
 
A proof that this is historically true
 
You have to take into account that Wehrmacht used a lot of captured T-34 till the end of the war and therefore knew the tank very well. 
 
You try over and over to derail the discussion to T-34, Sherman or anything else. That's whataboutism. 
 
You can't just pick engagements which you like. Once there is fog, once there is airforce, once there is mud, once there is sand, once the tanks are too new and not mature. Both sides can defend themselves with gazzilion similar excuses. 
 
You know what? The Germans deliberately chose foggy weather because they believed it was the advantageous conditions for them. Now you play it a disadvantage but in fact it just showed that the weak side armor was really important factor and that the lack of situation awareness was an important factor too becaue battless somehow rarely happen in ideal conditions especially if you don't have strategical initiative.

I’m not 100% sure how toxn’s statement was political... its historical fact that the Nazi’s were mass murderers. This doesn’t absolve or distract from the crimes-against-humanity of other states and governments; nor do the other states’ crimes justify what the Nazi’s did. They’re all horrible, and cherry-picking one as being “less horrible” is ridiculous and dishonest. 

I gave you reports in my post which clearly speak about German early tanks and specifically Pz.III as having brittle armor and producing a lot of spalling. If you just delete it from quote of my post it won't disappear from history.  
 
So again:
 
Here you go with just a few photos of early Panzers with cracked armor 

I hate to be that guy, but speaking of whataboutism:
 
 
With the classic Wehraboo talking points, and now this sudden defensiveness at the mere mention of the Holocaust, that 88 in your username is starting to seem just a bit suspicious. 

Go fuck yourself.  If you think pointing out the Nazi Germans were only truly good at one thing, and that one thing was Mass Murder, has anything to do with politics, you're a strait up Nazi Apologist. Politics and Mass murder are not supposed to mix unless you're a Nazi asshole or a commie.   
 
And real smart argument you fucking twat, "hey look, if your going to bring up war crimes about my favorite war time powers, the Nazi, I'll totally own  you by bringing up Soviet Atrocities".    
 
Here's a clue, no one here admires to soviet union or their war crimes. A few of us are not so shot through with Nazi Propaganda, we can talk about the T-34 and soviet equipment without defending the regime.  
 
What's the 88 in your name stand for? Normally I wouldn't suspect the person with 88 in their name of being a Nazi Apologist or worse, but your posts sure warrant it.