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

[Sturgeon]

5 hours ago, delete013 said:

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.

Have you ever bothered to read or watch any interview with Otto Carius? He's very candid about the fact that German kill claims and awards were complete BS. And yet, for some reason, when it comes to this people don't want to believe him. I wonder why.

[Sturgeon]

3 hours ago, delete013 said:

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.

 

So they'll fucking murder people but they'd never lie about kill counts, flawless logic.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

On 2/26/2021 at 12:56 AM, delete013 said:

Who had better mobility, panther or pershing?

 

What had better mobility Panther or Pershing over a month of steady use.  

 

Probably the Pershing in both cases, because American Vehicles don't break in catastrophic ways that take a long time to fix.

 

You can swap a whole M26 power pack in a few hours. That's a day at least on a Panther, since the hull roof and a bunch of road wheels have to come off to pull the Panthers Final Drives and Tranny. The engine wasn't super easy either. 

 

Pershing was 12.8 psi versus Panther G 12.65. Close enough to be negligible.  Pershing was running 450 HP for 46 tons. The Panther had between 500 and 600, (no one lists what the governed rating was) for 44 tons. It only made its 700 HP rating when it could be spun to 3000RPM, but it was governed to 2500 RPM. Call it 550, giving the Panther the edge on paper, but I just read through Panther Wank, the quest for Combat supremacy by Jentz, and the whole book is a listing off all the shit that was wrong with these tanks and how they kind of a fixed them, but never really did.  They Never fixed the HL230 of blowing head gaskets and throwing rods. Though, the horrible cooling system could have aggravated this, overheating blows head gaskets. 

 

After reading through the Jentz book, reliability goes to the Pershing.  Pershing, a History of the T20 series documents far LESS problems than the Panther.  

 

Final Note, I had not looked through the Boo Bibles for years, and having read so many Hunnicutt books, I'm spoiled. They are just so much better than this Jentz and Spielburger garbage. They couldn't be bothered to put spec sheets in for the models. Trash, utter trash, but the pictures are nice.  

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

10 hours ago, delete013 said:

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.

 

They were ashamed they got caught, or that they lost. These were not good honorable people. They fought a dreadful war of Genocide against the Soviet Union(and we all know about the 6 million Jews and another 4 to 5 millions other civilians in Europe they murdered), and they all knew what was going on in the camps. It's really sad to see someone white knighting about their honor.  You really think these people are going to be honest about the things they did? No, they wanted fools like you to think they were just honorable men forced to fight for a Maniac. That's bullshit, the good Germans died in the camps after resisting, you know there were resistors right? 

[TokyoMorose]

19 hours ago, delete013 said:

Who had better mobility, panther or pershing?

 

Panther, but only just - and primarily due to a better and more efficient steering mechanism (Triple Diff versus good ole Cletrac steering on the M26).

 

On most terrain, the ground pressure difference is so marginal that it matters not (Panther of course has a more notable advantage in deep mud and the like) and while people love to factor in the full "power" of the HL230 once you factor in the actual *governed* net power, the Panther and M26 have almost exactly the same net HP/Ton.

 

So yes, the Panther is marginally more mobile when working but I cannot stress how slim the margin is. They are for all intents and purposes equal outside of specific terrain (i.e. bad enough mud/snow the ground pressure difference adds up) and yet everyone calls the M26 a slow pig, and the Panther's mobility tends to get highlighted.

 

I think the reason for this distinction is that M26 saw lots of service and use with the much, much faster post-war designs that made it seem like a slow pig in comparison while Panther was mostly used alongside/against wartime and even prewar designs so it seems very mobile indeed. If you compared the Panther to the same set of machines M26 usually gets compared to (even if the comparison is subconscious by a unit that say, transitioned from M26 to M46 or M47), the Panther is just as much of a slow pig.

[David Moyes]

...this thread over the past pages:
 

 

[holoween]

On 2/25/2021 at 10:47 PM, delete013 said:

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.

 

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.

[heretic88]

19 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

Their books are excellent, but the authors themselves are, like anyone else, just people who write.

 

Just people who write... AND spend their time studying original archives, documents, reports and the actual surviving vehicles. This is the difference between amateurs (like it or not, all of us are amateurs on forums such as this) and experts... Of course they may make mistakes, but overall, their knowledge about their subjects is FAR above mine, yours, and anybody else on this forum combined. 

[delete013]

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.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

2 hours ago, heretic88 said:

 

Just people who write... AND spend their time studying original archives, documents, reports and the actual surviving vehicles. This is the difference between amateurs (like it or not, all of us are amateurs on forums such as this) and experts... Of course they may make mistakes, but overall, their knowledge about their subjects is FAR above mine, yours, and anybody else on this forum combined. 

 

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. 

[Sturgeon]

3 hours ago, heretic88 said:

 

Just people who write... AND spend their time studying original archives, documents, reports and the actual surviving vehicles. This is the difference between amateurs (like it or not, all of us are amateurs on forums such as this) and experts... Of course they may make mistakes, but overall, their knowledge about their subjects is FAR above mine, yours, and anybody else on this forum combined. 

 

Maybe you're an amateur, buddy, but I get paid.

[delete013]

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?

[roguetechie]

6 hours ago, heretic88 said:

 

Just people who write... AND spend their time studying original archives, documents, reports and the actual surviving vehicles. This is the difference between amateurs (like it or not, all of us are amateurs on forums such as this) and experts... Of course they may make mistakes, but overall, their knowledge about their subjects is FAR above mine, yours, and anybody else on this forum combined. 

 

He says on a forum populated with a very non trivial number of professionals in the field and authors who published and publish much better sourced works on the subject directly at hand.

 

Just because you're some dipshit on the internet doesn't mean the people you're arguing with are too...

 

I'm not one of those professionals for the record but I do find this incredibly funny.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

I think someone posted this before.

You can find some amazing photos of a HL230 overhaul in a shop in Europe. 

http://www.armytech.com/panther_maybach_hl230_overhaul/#PhotoSwipe1611282212417

 

 

[Beer]

14 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

I think someone posted this before.

You can find some amazing photos of a HL230 overhaul in a shop in Europe. 

http://www.armytech.com/panther_maybach_hl230_overhaul/#PhotoSwipe1611282212417

 

 

 

That's company of Mr. Šercl based in Northern Bohemia, he built the engines for LT vz.35, LT vz.38 and AH-IV-Sv of Lešany muzeum as well, also Hetzer engine for Flying Herritage (he did more Hetzers). He has also a technical muzeum. You can find tons of photos from various restoration here.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

20 minutes ago, Beer said:

 

That's company of Mr. Šercl based in Northern Bohemia, he built the engines for LT vz.35, LT vz.38 and AH-IV-Sv of Lešany muzeum as well, also Hetzer engine for Flying Herritage (he did more Hetzers). He has also a technical muzeum. You can find tons of photos from various restoration here.

 

Sweet!

I know I spent hours looking through those engine photos. 

[heretic88]

23 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

Maybe you're an amateur, buddy, but I get paid.

Maybe show your books then, the sources you used, references, etc.

[heretic88]

20 hours ago, roguetechie said:

He says on a forum populated with a very non trivial number of professionals in the field and authors who published and publish much better sourced works on the subject directly at hand.

Who? Then show me those "much better sourced" works. So the ignorant propagandists and nazi apologists, (including Hilary Doyle) can learn from them! (too bad poor Jentz and Spielberger cant defend themselves anymore... but who cares their decades of research was basically nothing more than nazi propaganda, yes?)

[Sturgeon]

4 hours ago, heretic88 said:

Maybe show your books then, the sources you used, references, etc.

 

Hahahahah you're a trip bro!

[roguetechie]

5 hours ago, heretic88 said:

Who? Then show me those "much better sourced" works.

 

It's literally not my job to show you but since this forum's unofficial motto is LINK OR DIE it's pretty safe to assume that what you're demanding is extremely easy to find on this very forum...

 

As to who exactly on here is published and what they've published, chances are if you don't know that they're published and what they've published it's because they don't want you to know likely because they think you're a fucking clown and don't want to be bothered with you.

 

Since you've been here for so god damn long without even once clicking the sticky at the top of EVERY SUBFORUM that contains the SH newb guide, which you're flagrantly stomping all over, I don't feel even a little compelled to take pity much less mercy on you.

 

I only stopped in to watch you get turned out like rupaul at florence supermax, not to help you stop being a fucking idiot.

[heretic88]

So, basically nothing... okay... have it your way then. Hard to take you seriously. Discussion finished for my part. 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

52 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

So, basically nothing... okay... have it your way then. Hard to take you seriously. Discussion finished for my part. 

Run along apologist, you won't be missed.

[Sturgeon]

6 hours ago, heretic88 said:

So, basically nothing... okay... have it your way then. Hard to take you seriously. Discussion finished for my part. 

 

Do as you please, but don't expect to stick around on charm alone.

[DogDodger]

On 2/26/2021 at 3:17 AM, delete013 said:

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.

You have high standards for ground clearance. The Pershing was designated as a heavy for a short while, but was begat by a medium design; actual heavy designs were ongoing but didn't see service before the war ended. Hunnicutt and Yeide agree that the "heavy" nomenclature was mostly for morale purposes. I'm not sure it was quite as bad off-road as you make it seem, but I do find the T25 a tantalizing what-if.

On 2/26/2021 at 11:54 PM, TokyoMorose said:

 

Panther, but only just - and primarily due to a better and more efficient steering mechanism (Triple Diff versus good ole Cletrac steering on the M26).

 

On most terrain, the ground pressure difference is so marginal that it matters not (Panther of course has a more notable advantage in deep mud and the like) and while people love to factor in the full "power" of the HL230 once you factor in the actual *governed* net power, the Panther and M26 have almost exactly the same net HP/Ton.

 

So yes, the Panther is marginally more mobile when working but I cannot stress how slim the margin is. They are for all intents and purposes equal outside of specific terrain (i.e. bad enough mud/snow the ground pressure difference adds up) and yet everyone calls the M26 a slow pig, and the Panther's mobility tends to get highlighted.

 

I think the reason for this distinction is that M26 saw lots of service and use with the much, much faster post-war designs that made it seem like a slow pig in comparison while Panther was mostly used alongside/against wartime and even prewar designs so it seems very mobile indeed. If you compared the Panther to the same set of machines M26 usually gets compared to (even if the comparison is subconscious by a unit that say, transitioned from M26 to M46 or M47), the Panther is just as much of a slow pig.

 

On 2/26/2021 at 8:27 PM, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

What had better mobility Panther or Pershing over a month of steady use.  

 

Probably the Pershing in both cases, because American Vehicles don't break in catastrophic ways that take a long time to fix.

 

You can swap a whole M26 power pack in a few hours. That's a day at least on a Panther, since the hull roof and a bunch of road wheels have to come off to pull the Panthers Final Drives and Tranny. The engine wasn't super easy either. 

 

Pershing was 12.8 psi versus Panther G 12.65. Close enough to be negligible.  Pershing was running 450 HP for 46 tons. The Panther had between 500 and 600, (no one lists what the governed rating was) for 44 tons. It only made its 700 HP rating when it could be spun to 3000RPM, but it was governed to 2500 RPM. Call it 550, giving the Panther the edge on paper, but I just read through Panther Wank, the quest for Combat supremacy by Jentz, and the whole book is a listing off all the shit that was wrong with these tanks and how they kind of a fixed them, but never really did.  They Never fixed the HL230 of blowing head gaskets and throwing rods. Though, the horrible cooling system could have aggravated this, overheating blows head gaskets. 

 

After reading through the Jentz book, reliability goes to the Pershing.  Pershing, a History of the T20 series documents far LESS problems than the Panther.  

 

Final Note, I had not looked through the Boo Bibles for years, and having read so many Hunnicutt books, I'm spoiled. They are just so much better than this Jentz and Spielburger garbage. They couldn't be bothered to put spec sheets in for the models. Trash, utter trash, but the pictures are nice.  

Panther used a geared steering system and not a triple-differential, no? The nominal ground pressures were indeed similar (and even favored the Pershing, depending on the source), but the Panther's mean maximal pressure and other off-road performance characteristics would benefit from its maintenance-unfriendly road wheel setup. Wong has some interesting simulations in Terramechanics and Off-road Vehicle Engineering between a baseline M113-type vehicle with 5 road wheel stations, the same vehicle with 6 road wheel stations, and the same vehicle with 8 overlapping road wheel stations. The simulations are run on snow and clayey soil, and the machine with more road wheels shows better performance in everything from wheel sinkage to drawbar pull to tractive effort to trim angle, etc. Panther weighed 6.9-8.6% more than the M26, but its tracks were 2-3" wider and it had 2 more road wheel stations per track in the same ground contact length and essentially the same track pitch (5.9" for the Kgs 64/660/150 vs. 6" for the M26's tracks). Double torsion bars were probably needlessly complex, the interleaved wheels required inordinate effort and time for maintenance, and the final drive was never adequately strengthened, but credit where due: the thing should perform quite well off-road.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

3 hours ago, DogDodger said:

You have high standards for ground clearance. The Pershing was designated as a heavy for a short while, but was begat by a medium design; actual heavy designs were ongoing but didn't see service before the war ended. Hunnicutt and Yeide agree that the "heavy" nomenclature was mostly for morale purposes. I'm not sure it was quite as bad off-road as you make it seem, but I do find the T25 a tantalizing what-if.

 

Panther used a geared steering system and not a triple-differential, no? The nominal ground pressures were indeed similar (and even favored the Pershing, depending on the source), but the Panther's mean maximal pressure and other off-road performance characteristics would benefit from its maintenance-unfriendly road wheel setup. Wong has some interesting simulations in Terramechanics and Off-road Vehicle Engineering between a baseline M113-type vehicle with 5 road wheel stations, the same vehicle with 6 road wheel stations, and the same vehicle with 8 overlapping road wheel stations. The simulations are run on snow and clayey soil, and the machine with more road wheels shows better performance in everything from wheel sinkage to drawbar pull to tractive effort to trim angle, etc. Panther weighed 6.9-8.6% more than the M26, but its tracks were 2-3" wider and it had 2 more road wheel stations per track in the same ground contact length and essentially the same track pitch (5.9" for the Kgs 64/660/150 vs. 6" for the M26's tracks). Double torsion bars were probably needlessly complex, the interleaved wheels required inordinate effort and time for maintenance, and the final drive was never adequately strengthened, but credit where due: the thing should perform quite well off-road.

 

 

I think I've seen charts talking about the same things, they may even be somewhere in these 89s pages! Surely it does not do enough to warrant the nightmare the Panthers Suspension was to deal with in every other way.  We could also really get into the weeds, and talk about Track and road wheel durability. Jentz mentions issues with the Panther tracks bending guide horns, are these problems aggravated off road, negating any advantage the suspension is going to give you. I don't recall the Pershing having similar suspension issues. The advantage the Panthers Road Wheel system offered must be minor enough no copied it on tanks. Surely you can get damn close with an extra normal size road wheel and shocks?

 

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. 

 

Check out this guys Flickr

He has many car, plane and tank pics, and seems to be connected to a very cool tank restoration shop. 

(That funny feeling in the pit of your stomach, Wehraboos, is the feeling you get when you look upon good tanks)