StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)

[Sturgeon]

12 minutes ago, delete013 said:

It seems pretty bulletproof analysis.

to you

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

54 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

to you

 

 

Makes you wonder what other outrageous Nazi claims he believes?   I bet he thinks Ruddell killed every tank he claimed too. 

[Korvette]

2 hours ago, delete013 said:

I read again. It seems pretty bulletproof analysis. Not 100%, for sure, but as high as the best ww2 records can give.

How many 'Get real' gifs must I post.

[Laser Shark]

19 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

the Norge PanzerGren regiment

 

Ugh. I’d rather that Körner claim all of the kills than the quislings of that regiment.

 

--------------

 

But anyway, it looks like FFG has finally added a page on the ACSV G5 to their website. There is some info there, as well as higher quality versions of photos which have already showed up here and elsewhere + some new ones I haven't seen before.

 

Production of the ACSV G5 is set to start next year, with system integration and final assembly being carried out at Ritek in Levanger. By then they should be mostly finished with the 12 additional CV90RWS combat engineering vehicles and 8 multi-role vehicles, which were ordered last year. The initial contract is for 44 vehicles, but this number is expected to grow to several hundreds over the next years.

[SH_MM]

An interesting tidbid from FFG's website is the statement, that the PMMC G5 was considered the best tracked APC in the Danish trials (so better than the ASCOD and CV90 Armadillo). Was the Armadillo offered to the Norwegian Army for the ACSV program?

[Laser Shark]

44 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

Was the Armadillo offered to the Norwegian Army for the ACSV program?

 

I don’t know, I'm afraid, but I somehow doubt that Hägglunds would have bid on an M113 rebuild, which this project started out as. It's an interesting question how the M113F4 morphed into the ACSV G5, but from the little that has been written about this process, I got no better answer than FFG decided to offer it, it got selected and somehow Norway managed to stumble our way into an actual M113 successor.

[TokyoMorose]

9 hours ago, delete013 said:

Sure, they did also damage, just not likely so much. The "projectile" category alone would be dubious but not if there is a separate category of hand held AT weapons!

 

Not the most convincing AT asset. It is clear that tigers and perhaps those stugs had by far the best chances of destroying armour. From Strausberg, tigers had a nice view of the area. The type of tanks was made for such dueling.

 

Gee it's awfully funny that all of the personal combat logs whine about panzerfausts, and German records recall there being literally hundreds of them in the AO - but the fact that they didn't report the losses as being to them must mean it never happened. And yes, the losses to fausts were so low that the Soviets didn't improvise bedspring armor in a desperate attempt to do something against them, and that the soviets most certainly didn't bother capturing and reverse engineering them. Not at all. I think it is far more likely someone on the soviet side simply messed up (records are hardly faultless on any side!) with recording the losses rather than all of the combat logs being wrong and the hundreds of panzerfausts in the area apparently doing absolutely nothing despite being in a perfect situation.

 

And yes, Norge's *nominal* AT assets are quite sad. But given the condition of the battlefield I would bet money at least some bigger AT guns were attached to them ad-hoc from other battered units. Nobody records every ad-hoc attachment, look at the utter mess of ad-hoc formations during Bagration and Zitadelle - these are well known to exist but their exact composition is never going to be fully known.

[Toxn]

 

Ah, the typical Western front Tiger story:

- scratch unit (because most of the effort is in the East)

- breakdowns start immediately

- mauled by infantry

- more breakdowns

- mauled by infantry and halftracks

- one successful engagement (that wehraboos won't shut up about)

- yet more breakdowns

- outfoxed by Comets and their 'quick reversing'

- fail to reposition

- get ouflanked and shot in the side

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

4 hours ago, Toxn said:

 

Ah, the typical Western front Tiger story:

- scratch unit (because most of the effort is in the East)

- breakdowns start immediately

- mauled by infantry

- more breakdowns

- mauled by infantry and halftracks

- one successful engagement (that wehraboos won't shut up about)

- yet more breakdowns

- outfoxed by Comets and their 'quick reversing'

- fail to reposition

- get ouflanked and shot in the side

 

Yeah, how many tigers and Panthers were lost for 3 Shermans again?  

 

So is Felton a boo? 

[Toxn]

5 hours ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

Yeah, how many tigers and Panthers were lost for 3 Shermans again?  

 

So is Felton a boo? 

No, but the commenters on his videos are.

[Rico]

On 4/25/2021 at 9:17 PM, SH_MM said:

An interesting tidbid from FFG's website is the statement, that the PMMC G5 was considered the best tracked APC in the Danish trials (so better than the ASCOD and CV90 Armadillo). Was the Armadillo offered to the Norwegian Army for the ACSV program?

 

Well, FFG is partly more a Danish company than a German one as I see it. At least the northen axis is much stronger in its relationship than down south incl. German Bundeswehr. That might be why their products are seen in a different way from Danish perspective.

 

Personally I think that the G5 was/is very good in performance but the prototype production quality could not reach quality of CV90. But that might be prototype VS series.

Lets wait and see when the ACSV gets a chance to show some muscles.

[SH_MM]

FFG is a German company and has a much larger footprint in Germany than Denmark. The only reason why FFG started developing upgrades for the M113 (which then lead to the PMMC G5 design) was a Bundeswehr program.

[Rico]

Well, Flensborg is Danmark's southernmost port that is located on the German borderside.  If you be there you will understand - it is simply a mix of both countries and so is FFG on my opionion.

 

It is true that M133 upgread led to G5 but G3 and G4 are/were used in DK as well.

Wisent 1 and Wisent 2 have both lots of input from Danish user side in their veins and Bundeswehr rejected both (BPz2000 and Wisent 2 AEV) for a worse technical solution.

[SH_MM]

Flensburg is a border town and there are a lot of cultural and sociological interchanges with Denmark; it is a German city though. In Germany you will also find lots of people considering border towns in neighbour countries (Austria, France, the Netherlands, etc.) to be essentially German, because a lot of Germans work there and a lot of culture is shared (in case of the 91-years-old woman who lives next to the house I grew up in, even Breslau/Wrocław is German, but she has other reasons for saying that...).

 

To suggest that the PMMC G5 was rated higher than the CV90 Armadillo and the turretless ASCOD in the Danish evaluation because the Danes have sympathy with FFG just because Flensburg is located so close to the border, is silly. It undersells the actual reasons why the G5 was assessed as being better such as the larger interior volume, the very high level of mine protection (12 kg TNT, i.e. higher than STANAG 4569 Level 4b), the good ergonomics/crew station layout for driver and commander, the low weight and the inherent modularity of the design.

 

As for the vehicles that lead to the G5, it should be noted that the G actually stands for German; or at least it did before FFG started marketing its upgrades internationally. Originally the G was added to the M113 by FMC (the original M113 manufacturer) to denote that the M113G incorporated specific changes made for the German Army (i.e. SEM series radios, 76 mm smoke grenade dischargers by Wegmann, etc.). The German military then designated upgraded versions M113G1, M113G2 and M113G3 rather than M113GA1A1/A2/A3.

 

Some of these upgrades contracts - i.e. the NDV 1 and NDV 2 - were awarded to FFG, as their offers were better than the competition. The M113G4 "Waran" was also originally developed by FFG for the Bundeswehr (hence the "G"), but was not purchased after being trialed in 2002; the German Army had decided to instead focus on wheeled vehicles such as the GTK Boxer.

A non-offcial "M113G5" - i.e. a further development of the M113G4 - was privately funded by FFG and offered to the German Army in 2008 as M113 variant optimized for use in Afghanistan; FFG described the vehicle only as GMT (Geschützer Mannschaftstransporter) M113. It was fitted with AMAP ceramic armor, a Rheinmetall Amarok RWS and rubber-band tracks. It was decided that the M113 shouldn't be used in the APC role and instead the up-armored Fuchs and MRAPs such as the Dingo and Eagle were better suited for operations in Afghanistan.

 

 

[Beer]

British trials of the Panther, both war-time and post-war: https://warspot.net/342-a-german-cat-in-king-george-s-court

[Toxn]

5 hours ago, Beer said:

British trials of the Panther, both war-time and post-war: https://warspot.net/342-a-german-cat-in-king-george-s-court

Oh wow, it managed to come out looking even worse than in the Soviet trials.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

11 hours ago, Toxn said:

Oh wow, it managed to come out looking even worse than in the Soviet trials.

 

Yeah, it so bad, even Delete can't spin it as a win... 

[Toxn]

1 hour ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

Yeah, it so bad, even Delete can't spin it as a win... 

It'll be fun to watch him try though.

[Beer]

On 4/26/2021 at 3:01 AM, TokyoMorose said:

 

Gee it's awfully funny that all of the personal combat logs whine about panzerfausts, and German records recall there being literally hundreds of them in the AO - but the fact that they didn't report the losses as being to them must mean it never happened. And yes, the losses to fausts were so low that the Soviets didn't improvise bedspring armor in a desperate attempt to do something against them, and that the soviets most certainly didn't bother capturing and reverse engineering them. Not at all. I think it is far more likely someone on the soviet side simply messed up (records are hardly faultless on any side!) with recording the losses rather than all of the combat logs being wrong and the hundreds of panzerfausts in the area apparently doing absolutely nothing despite being in a perfect situation.

 

And yes, Norge's *nominal* AT assets are quite sad. But given the condition of the battlefield I would bet money at least some bigger AT guns were attached to them ad-hoc from other battered units. Nobody records every ad-hoc attachment, look at the utter mess of ad-hoc formations during Bagration and Zitadelle - these are well known to exist but their exact composition is never going to be fully known.

 

Sorry if off-topic but I guess this would be interesting for you. 

 

I have just finished reading the chronicle of Czechoslovak tank brigade in USSR and since this was the only our tank unit on the eastern front (and the first unit to reach today's Czech Republic territory) and a relatively small unit, it's pretty well documented and researched day by day, name after name, tank after tank. I'm giving here some confirmed numbers from Ostrava operation which was in a way comparable to Berlin thrust. The battle was fought in the same time (but it took twice longer and even fighting for Opava/Troppau city took longer than for Berlin proper), it was fought for the last industrial area of the Third Reich (80% of industry by March 1945) and against up to 50 km deep defence lines (prepared by Heinrici) strenghtened by Czechoslovak pre-war fortifications (even though the Germans removed most of the weapons, cupolas etc. for Atlantic wall in previous years the objects were still literally immune to any field artillery weapons and some kept fighting till the end of war). The defenders had 25 divisions including 4 tank ones (8th, 16th, 17th, 19th, of course few on full strength by that time) while the attackers had very few tanks because of Berlin. The defence was also strenghtened by a lot of rivers, dense network of towns and villages and muddy spring soil. At the beginning of the second phase (the first phase happened farther to the east without success and without our tank brigade) there were only 63 Czechoslovak T-34 (10 of them T-34/76), 21 Soviet T-34 and 10 Soviet Su-76M. The Germans had 84 Panthers and a lot of other AFVs. Later Soviets added two batallions with 40 IS-2 obr.1944 and several other AFV units. For most of the fighting the Czechoslovak brigade was spearheading the attack in direction of Ostrava city (except for the first phase).  

 

Now the stats. In 38 days of active fighting in the operation the Czechoslovak brigade lost 52 tanks written off (43 T-34/85 and 9 T-34/76), basically all were damaged at some point but they kept returning in service over and over again because the unit kept advancing all the time. The manpower losses including tank riders were 148 dead and roughly 300 wounded. Tanks were usually lost to Panzerfausts in urban areas or in ambushes by tank destroyers and tanks in prepared camouflaged positions. Rather small number was destroyed by AT artillery or 88 mm Flak which is probably due to an extensive use of surprising directions of attack, use of speed and smokescreen (by artillery) which sometimes led to the capture of settlements before the defenders could get back to their weapons after the artillery barage. Also very few losses came from German counter attacks. Four tank commanders were killed by snipers. 

 

The confirmed German material losses by the Czechoslovak brigade are 24 tanks (mainly Panthers and some Pz.IV), 23 SPG (StuG.III, Jagdpanzer IV/L70, Jagdpanzer 38(t), Marder III and even one rare Jagdpanzer IV/70(a)), 17 Sd.Kfz.251 and 64 guns (including 15 Pak and 3 bateries of 88 mm Flak). Another at least two tanks (one Pz.IV, one Panther) and seven Sd.Kfz.251 were captured (also one Kettenkrad and other vehicles). The Pz.IV was later used by the brigade, the Panther not. Manpower losses are only estimated but they were very high because only the number of captured was in high hundreds while in a single engagement the number of POWs was usually lesser than number of the dead, there were quite many cases when units of SS fought to the last man. For exmaple in a fight for Štítina village there were 130 dead German bodies but only 2 captured (the combined Soviet/Czechoslovak losses in the same village were also over 100 dead).   

 

All data including photographs of a large portion of the destroyed German AFVs in the battle can be found in a book ISBN 80-86524-00-0.

 

P.S. About aircraft. In the entire history of the unit since 1943 to 1945 no tank was destroyed by an aircraft, only one was immobilised for a day. 

 

 

 

 

 

[delete013]

 

 

On 5/7/2021 at 12:11 AM, Beer said:

The Germans had 84 Panthers and a lot of other AFVs.

On 5/7/2021 at 12:11 AM, Beer said:

Also very few losses came from German counter attacks. Four tank commanders were killed by snipers.

 

This is an entirely unsourced estimate:

The last quote should be a clue to indicate that Germans didn't have 84 panthers and a lot of AFVs where Czech brigade was fighting. They likely had so few that no mobile reserve was able to be formed. Hence, no counter-attacks. Snipers were a typical German low asset delaying tactic. Fortifications were a mere delaying factor in German doctrine, which without an active reserve is basically a speedbump. The depth indicates that Germans had nothing mobile to counter an expected armoured attack.
If you find German side of the story (Heinrici's opinion on the situation, for example), then you might get some credible facts out of this.

 

On 5/4/2021 at 8:13 PM, Toxn said:

Oh wow, it managed to come out looking even worse than in the Soviet trials.

 

On 5/5/2021 at 7:46 AM, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

Yeah, it so bad, even Delete can't spin it as a win... 

 

British reports are Altschnee. They first drove a broken tank (slower than a Chuchill, had broken suspension and missing the third gear) and the post war production tests started with neutral steering, which is what German drivers were told explicitly to avoid. There was likely other weird things involved because Soviets could finish their turning radius tests with neutral steering! If Brits wanted to break the vehicle, then they easily succeeded.
There is another important factor that I failed to point out before. 100km on a road and 100 km in combat are two entirely different categories. Since German tried hard to relocate with trains, then large fraction of driven kms were likely off-road.

[Toxn]

19 minutes ago, delete013 said:

 

 

 

This is an entirely unsourced estimate:

The last quote should be a clue to indicate that Germans didn't have 84 panthers and a lot of AFVs where Czech brigade was fighting. They likely had so few that no mobile reserve was able to be formed. Hence, no counter-attacks. Snipers were a typical German low asset delaying tactic. Fortifications were a mere delaying factor in German doctrine, which without an active reserve is basically a speedbump. The depth indicates that Germans had nothing mobile to counter an expected armoured attack.
If you find German side of the story (Heinrici's opinion on the situation, for example), then you might get some credible facts out of this.

 

 

 

British reports are Altschnee. They first drove a broken tank (slower than a Chuchill, had broken suspension and missing the third gear) and the post war production tests started with neutral steering, which is what German drivers were told explicitly to avoid. There was likely other weird things involved because Soviets could finish their turning radius tests with neutral steering! If Brits wanted to break the vehicle, then they easily succeeded.
There is another important factor that I failed to point out before. 100km on a road and 100 km in combat are two entirely different categories. Since German tried hard to relocate with trains, then large fraction of driven kms were likely off-road.

Chew toy's back gents!

 

Funny, I thought the point of testing was to try and break the thing. This may also be the first time I've ever heard anyone argue that road tests are more gruelling than off-road ones...

[Lord_James]

I thought I felt a disturbance in the force... 

 

26 minutes ago, delete013 said:

 

This is an entirely unsourced estimate:

The last quote should be a clue to indicate that Germans didn't have 84 panthers and a lot of AFVs where Czech brigade was fighting. They likely had so few that no mobile reserve was able to be formed. Hence, no counter-attacks. Snipers were a typical German low asset delaying tactic. Fortifications were a mere delaying factor in German doctrine, which without an active reserve is basically a speedbump. The depth indicates that Germans had nothing mobile to counter an expected armoured attack.
If you find German side of the story (Heinrici's opinion on the situation, for example), then you might get some credible facts out of this.

 

British reports are Altschnee. They first drove a broken tank (slower than a Chuchill, had broken suspension and missing the third gear) and the post war production tests started with neutral steering, which is what German drivers were told explicitly to avoid. There was likely other weird things involved because Soviets could finish their turning radius tests with neutral steering! If Brits wanted to break the vehicle, then they easily succeeded.
There is another important factor that I failed to point out before. 100km on a road and 100 km in combat are two entirely different categories. Since German tried hard to relocate with trains, then large fraction of driven kms were likely off-road.

You have been given sources from the Soviet, French, and now British army’s on what they think of the panzer 5, and they’re all in agreement that it is mechanically fragile and unreliable. I can only imagine that American testing would confirm these statements. Hell, even several German reports say they were unhappy with the Panther, for the same reasons (engine and transmission reliability). What arguments can you possibly give that could reverse such criticisms? 

[Toxn]

18 minutes ago, Lord_James said:

I thought I felt a disturbance in the force... 

 

You have been given sources from the Soviet, French, and now British army’s on what they think of the panzer 5, and they’re all in agreement that it is mechanically fragile and unreliable. I can only imagine that American testing would confirm these statements. Hell, even several German reports say they were unhappy with the Panther, for the same reasons (engine and transmission reliability). What arguments can you possibly give that could reverse such criticisms? 

 

[Toxn]

@delete013 here's a serious suggestion for you: design a tank. We have a competition going on right now, in fact, and you can put together an entry pretty easily so long as you have some access to CAD modeling software (free programs such as Sketchup are accepted).

 

Really - go through the process of designing a gun, a turret, a hull. Fit an engine, mock up a semi-realistic transmission system. Make hard choices as you try to balance firepower, ergonomics, armour protection, power-to-weight ratio, ground pressure and range. Really get to grips with the subject.

 

Then come back and tell us what you think of a particular design as an engineer rather than a partisan.

[Beer]

3 hours ago, delete013 said:

This is an entirely unsourced estimate:

The last quote should be a clue to indicate that Germans didn't have 84 panthers and a lot of AFVs where Czech brigade was fighting. They likely had so few that no mobile reserve was able to be formed. Hence, no counter-attacks. Snipers were a typical German low asset delaying tactic. Fortifications were a mere delaying factor in German doctrine, which without an active reserve is basically a speedbump. The depth indicates that Germans had nothing mobile to counter an expected armoured attack.
If you find German side of the story (Heinrici's opinion on the situation, for example), then you might get some credible facts out of this.

 

Man, what are you trying to achieve by argueing about things which are not written in my post? If you suffer from some sort of paranoia where you see between the lines what is not written there, it's entirely your problem. 

 

The 84 Panthers is number of vehicles presented in the four Panzerdivisions involved in the operation. Nowhere in my post I claimed that all those Panthers were used against the Czechoslovak brigade, neither did I claim that all were operational (that's obviously impossible due to the low Panther rediness rate). That the Czechoslovak brigade fought against Panthers in multiple occasions is a well researched fact documented by photos of destroyed and captured vehicles. 

 

I have written that there were very few losses from German counterattacks which is simply a well researched fact. Period. I didn't argue about reasons for that, so you can spare your time writting answers to something which was never claimed. 

 

The Germans had more AFVs than the Soviet/Czechoslovak side at the beginning of the operation, that is also a fact. At the beginning of the second phase the entire attacking force had the 1st CzAB (63 T-34), 5th Soviet GTB (only 21 T-34) and 875th Soviet light SPG regiment (only 10 Su-76M). The defenders had 8th, 16th, 17th, 19th Panzerdivisions and 10th Panzergrenadier division among other forces. It is documented fact that vehicles destroyed or captured by the CzAB belonged to 8th, 17th, 19th PzD and 311th StuG brigade, i.e. it encountered majority of German armored formations which is logical since for reasonable part of the operation it presented the strongest armored unit of the attackers. 

 

The ballance of AFV forces changed through the battle by the simple fact that the Germans were retreating all the time, i.e. everything left behind from whatever reason was lost (no fuel was also a reason). The other side kept returning knocked-out or bogged down vehicles over and over again but despite having days when only singular number of AFVs was available they kept advancing. For example the final breaktrhough into Ostrava city was done with only seven operational tanks in the brigade, two were knocked out (one by three Panzerfaust hits, the other by PaK) but at end of the day the CzAB had again seven tanks because two were repaired during the day. Also there were some AFV reinforcements on Soviet side later in the operation (the most important was the 42nd GTB with 40 IS-2). 

 

  

3 hours ago, delete013 said:

If you find German side of the story (Heinrici's opinion on the situation, for example), then you might get some credible facts out of this.

 

Anyone's memoires, especially of prominent nazi persons are not facts and I'm not interested in them.