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

[delete013]

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..

 

Quote

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..

[Sturgeon]

4 hours ago, delete013 said:

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

 

This. This right here is an absolute choice bit of consequential apologism. It doesn't occur to you at all that Panther might have been a dysfunctional product of a dysfunctional system. If it does occur to you, your brain runs interference and blocks you from allowing yourself to even imagine such a thing could be true. Hitler has cucked your brain. Your raising his little aryan kiddies in your head! Only question is: why?

[Beer]

42 minutes ago, delete013 said:

This wasn't a drawing board prototype..

 

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..

 

I'm sorry but building a prototype (or in this case just a turretless demonstrator) is something very different than to develop vehicle suitable for production. The Schmalturm on the picture was not an integral Panther II feature but a separate later development considered for various vehicles but it also never got anywhere - not even to the final specification. 

 

In the end Panther II was replaced by another, this time pure-paper project E-50 before there was even an attempt to start Panther II production done. No prototype testing was done, no trials, not even any final design specification was done and nothing was ordered. 

 

Using such projects for comparison with anything actually fielded is completely useless and on the level of pure fantasy. There were dozens of demonstrators and prototypes made in all countries and comparing them to anything is simply pointless because what matters in reality is not paper stats but real service record.

 

Besides that there is very good reason to expect that a new lale war German armor design would end in a failure because that was the general trend in vehicles which were getting to the production towards the end of the war. 

 

 

 

 

[delete013]

17 minutes ago, Beer said:

 

I'm sorry but building a prototype (or in this case just a turretless demonstrator) is something very different than to develop vehicle suitable for production. The Schmalturm on the picture was not an integral Panther II feature but a separate later development considered for various vehicles but it also never got anywhere - not even to the final specification. 

I didn't say it is from panther 2. I said it would be the the most likely upcoming medium, be it as E-50 or smth else.

 

17 minutes ago, Beer said:

In the end Panther II was replaced by another, this time pure-paper project E-50 before there was even an attempt to start Panther II production done. No prototype testing was done, no trials, not even any final design specification was done and nothing was ordered. 

Afaik was Entwicklung-series basically a reorganisation and standardisation study, incorporating future vehicles or versions of already available vehicles. E-50 would most likely be de facto an upgraded panther and updated panther 2 was the obvious choice. It featured precisely the component standardisation with tiger 2 that was considered for E-50 and E-75. It was a broad orientation of German armament industry that never had a chance to take place. The only reason why panther 2 was dropped is because it was not needed. Armour on German vehicles was adequate until the end of the war.

 

17 minutes ago, Beer said:

Using such projects for comparison with anything actually fielded is completely useless and on the level of pure fantasy. There were dozens of demonstrators and prototypes made in all countries and comparing them to anything is simply pointless because what matters in reality is not paper stats but real service record.

As opposed to uparmoured pershing E5, there is no reason to doubt the plausibility of panther-2/E-50/whatever name. It featured components of even heavier vehicles in service. Technology was no limit. I would expect an engineer to see that.

 

17 minutes ago, Beer said:

Besides that there is very good reason to expect that a new lale war German armor design would end in a failure because that was the general trend in vehicles which were getting to the production towards the end of the war.

 

5000+ destroyed shermans and 20000+ destroyed t-34s later..

 

 

 

Or was it all fanatical Fallschirmjäger and mines?

[roguetechie]

Now give poor old delete some credit.

 

It DOES say something about the respective auto technologies... Just not what he thinks it does.

 

The Pershing worked specifically because american engineers were capable of engineering something that was within the limits of their automotive technology while the Germans couldn't even manage to not fuck that up!

 

Anyone Actually capable in their field would have known that the panther final drives wouldn't have even been satisfactory on something 15 tons lighter, like the Pershing, so they built final drives that would actually WORK with what they had!

 

Delete keeps trying to act like it's some sort of accomplishment to build a "medium" that's 15 tons heavier than it should be while having inferior fit out because he apparently doesn't understand that the goal is to get x set of capabilities with y mobility at the lowest weight and bulk possible.

 

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the purpose of tanks truly is at it's core.

 

Delete believes in the stat block over all else while sane people understand that AFV design is about striking the best compromise between all the competing factors and design considerations to come out with a system that does the most with the least so that you can make deploy and supply as many of them as possible.

 

These are not vegas air races aircraft delete. No points are awarded for the most sleek sophisticated and on the edge of your technological capabilities designs.

 

Your entire approach for deciding what is good is based in a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of afv's.

[Lord_James]

Anybody else just... mentally exhausted? Who new just reading about people talking to a brick wall would be tiring, let alone actually arguing with said brick wall. Blessings to you, brave souls. 

[Toxn]

1 hour ago, Sturgeon said:

 

This. This right here is an absolute choice bit of consequential apologism. It doesn't occur to you at all that Panther might have been a dysfunctional product of a dysfunctional system. If it does occur to you, your brain runs interference and blocks you from allowing yourself to even imagine such a thing could be true. Hitler has cucked your brain. Your raising his little aryan kiddies in your head! Only question is: why?

I have this idea that most of our irrational attachments are due to the fact that our brains can only process things as a web of the other things its related to - you pull on a word and the whole person comes out.

 

Take the word "carriage". For me the word has built-in associations from children's stories and rhymes (Private Parrige brought the carriage), illustrated history books read in the school library, and the carriages rented for the matric dance. I cannot think the word without some tiny part of me remembering sitting on my mother's lap as she read to me as a child. So I probably can't rationally think about carriages as some sort of utilitarian object without resorting to tricks like de-identification.

 

Which is where this all gets tragic, because it means that Hitler cucked this kid's brain from beyond the grave by hijacking his childhood memories of watching the history channel with his dad or something.

[Toxn]

11 minutes ago, Lord_James said:

Anybody else just... mentally exhausted? Who new just reading about people talking to a brick wall would be tiring, let alone actually arguing with said brick wall. Blessings to you, brave souls. 

The best part (and I'm glad we get to do this every few years just to show the new kids how it was in the old days) is where they eventually run off and declare victory because we 'ran out of arguments' or something. Like, the brick wall talking up its fighting technique because we all got bored of hitting it eventually.

[delete013]

8 minutes ago, Toxn said:

'ran out of arguments'

You see it coming, don't you?

[Stimpy75]

Halloooo Deutschland hat den Krieg trotzdem verloren!!! Trotz hart wie Krupp Stahl und zäh wie Leder und beste Technologie und Panzerschokolade und Düsenjäger und Sturmgewehr....so plz stop wanking one on German war Technology.....it has been mentioned before, Russian took a monument of an IS-2 fueled it up and put some oil in the engine and started the engine with press air...try that with an Über Panther and this was not long ago, less watching discovery channel or dmax or history channel...and especially stay away from tank game forums

 

 

 

 

[roguetechie]

Yes, we see you edging closer to declaring victory even though you've had it explained clearly and thoroughly over and over in as simple language as possible.

 

 

[Beer]

3 minutes ago, delete013 said:

I didn't say it is from panther 2. I said it would be the the most likely upcoming medium, be it as E-50 or smth else.

 

Afaik was Entwicklung-series basically a reorganisation and standardisation study, incorporating future vehicles or versions of already available vehicles. E-50 would most likely be de facto an upgraded panther and updated panther 2 was the obvious choice. It featured precisely the component standardisation with tiger 2 that was considered for E-50 and E-75. It was a broad orientation of German armament industry that never had a chance to take place. The only reason why panther 2 was dropped is because it was not needed. Armour on German vehicles was adequate until the end of the war.

 

Sorry but that is fantasy and wishful thinking on your side and a clear misunderstanding how AFV development process is complicated and what needs to be done between the drawing board and the serial production. I'm sorry but if you don't understand how utterly useless is to over and over bring these dream projects into the discussion, I have nothing more to add to the subject. You can keep living in your fantasy land. 

  

3 minutes ago, delete013 said:

As opposed to uparmoured pershing E5, there is no reason to doubt the plausibility of panther-2/E-50/whatever name. It featured components of even heavier vehicles in service. Technology was no limit. I would expect an engineer to see that.

 

Seriously, WTF? Those heavier vehicles were an unreliable nearly useless mass of steels which failed miserably and you somehow expect that if you take some of their parts and put them in new vehicles everything will somehow start to work well? 

 

E-series except E-100 had rear transmission a thing completely new for the Germans, yet you somehow consider it a carry-over of the previous designs. There was no decision about suspension done with three existing options, one completely new and one never used for such heavy vehicle. The engine was all new direct-injection optionally turbocharged, never tried before. The hydraulic gearbox was all new never tested. Nothing is known about the turrets and armamament. All what circles about them on the internet is nothing more than made-up theories.  

 

Regarding E-series of tanks you shall read this: https://warspot.net/13-e-50-and-e-75-a-story-of-failed-unification

  

3 minutes ago, delete013 said:

5000+ destroyed shermans and 20000+ destroyed t-34s later..

 

War is not a football and is never ever won by score. In the end it's irrelevant if you kill one or million enemies when you loose. Wars are not fought to make impression on future generations of teenagers. War is won by the side which best achieves its strategical objectives. Everything else is secondary.  

 

 

T-54 prototype says hello to German paper tanks, March 1945. 

 

[delete013]

54 minutes ago, Lord_James said:

Anybody else just... mentally exhausted?

[Beer]

6 minutes ago, delete013 said:

 

OK, with this you can seriously fuck off. Your beloved fuckers murdered millions of innocent people and I'm sure I'm not the only one on this forum whose ancestors fought the Nazi scum and eventually died on the battlefield. 

 

Go fuck yourself. 

[MoritzPTK]

This seriously needs to stop. Not helping anyone, especially if the messages are insulting or no arguments are provided.

[DogDodger]

18 hours ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

Damn, I was hoping you had heard something about it, now I'm going to have to search for it! I have no idea what book or if it might even be wrong, I mean, you really know your stuff!

 

 

Ha, thanks. Flattery will get you...well pretty far, I suppose.

2 hours ago, roguetechie said:

Now give poor old delete some credit.

 

It DOES say something about the respective auto technologies... Just not what he thinks it does.

 

The Pershing worked specifically because american engineers were capable of engineering something that was within the limits of their automotive technology while the Germans couldn't even manage to not fuck that up!

 

Anyone Actually capable in their field would have known that the panther final drives wouldn't have even been satisfactory on something 15 tons lighter, like the Pershing, so they built final drives that would actually WORK with what they had!

 

Delete keeps trying to act like it's some sort of accomplishment to build a "medium" that's 15 tons heavier than it should be while having inferior fit out because he apparently doesn't understand that the goal is to get x set of capabilities with y mobility at the lowest weight and bulk possible.

 

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the purpose of tanks truly is at it's core.

 

Delete believes in the stat block over all else while sane people understand that AFV design is about striking the best compromise between all the competing factors and design considerations to come out with a system that does the most with the least so that you can make deploy and supply as many of them as possible.

 

These are not vegas air races aircraft delete. No points are awarded for the most sleek sophisticated and on the edge of your technological capabilities designs.

 

Your entire approach for deciding what is good is based in a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of afv's.

Indeed. The state of German automotive technology was unprepared for mass-production of a 45,000 kg tank. As we've been over, and as Spielberger notes, "Since it was envisaged to produce the Panther in large numbers, production costs of various subassemblies would have to be kept to a minimum...If it had been possible to foresee what difficulties the final reduction gearing was to cause, it would have been a much better solution to have selected a more expensive final drive which provided a greater degree of reliability. In the end, the final drive proved too weak to handle braking with the Klaue disk break [sic] when steering through tight curves. The use of epicyclic gearing for the final drive hinged upon the bottleneck being encountered in the supply of gear cutting machines for producing the hollow gearing. When passing judgement on the double-spur final reduction gear it should be noted that the high-quality steel originally planned for the spur gears in the final drive was not available for mass production and was unexpectedly replaced by VMS 135 (today 37 MnSi5) tempered steel (not as suitable for this purpose)...

 

"The final drive (gear teeth and bearings) was the weakest part of the Panther. It was a risky proposition to use a spur gear system for transferring the drive power - especially considering that the available steel during the war did not have a particularly high stress tolerance. A better solution would have been to use an epicyclic gear system; a prototype final reduction drive using planetary gear reduction had already been tested and had performed flawlessly. However, as mentioned previously, a shortage of gear cutting machinery for the hollow gearing prevented this type of final drive from being mass produced. In order to bridge the gap a final reduction gear system was installed in front of the main gear drive, but due to installation restrictions its mountings were far too weak and could not be strengthened. Because of gear teeth breaking under too great a load and the weak mountings, the gears were pushed out of alignment  - virtually guaranteeing mount and tooth breakage.

 

"The general consensus in the industry was that inner-toothed gear wheels could not be produced due to a lack of proper machinery. This meant that a final drive using planetary gear reduction and pre-selector spur gearing - found to be reliable in company testing - could not be installed in production tanks. All attempts to improve the final drive met with failure, despite the offers of a special bonus as an incentive..."

 

To quantify this a bit, Ristuccia and Tooze in "Machine tools and mass production in the armaments boom: Germany and the United States, 1929-44" note that Germany did make strides in increasing the number of gear-cutting machines in service, going from at least 10,407 in 1939 to 28,621 in January 1945. Even with these increases, compared to the US there were only 0.74 gear-cutting machines per German metalworking employee in 1945.

Edited March 4, 2021 by DogDodger
Typo in Tooze's name

[Lord_James]

7 minutes ago, delete013 said:

Really m8... really? 

 

1. Exhausted does not mean quitting, giving up, throwing-in-the-towel, defeated, or other such turn of phrase. I could jump into this argument at any time, but choose not to, primarily because the more knowledgeable and experienced members are making better points than I could hope to make. 
 

2. How deluded can you be? You’ve been nothing but a punching bag this entire time, and now you’re so out of arguments that you resort to insults and attacks. I haven’t even directly insulted your beloved “wunderwagon panther”, but I just might start. 

[delete013]

3 hours ago, Beer said:

 

OK, with this you can seriously fuck off. Your beloved fuckers murdered millions of innocent people and I'm sure I'm not the only one on this forum whose ancestors fought the Nazi scum and eventually died on the battlefield. 

 

Go fuck yourself. 

Jesus, sorry for your ancestors. I don't think of dead millions when I post panthers. If German uniform offends you, you are in a wrong thread.

[ADC411]

Guys, I've gotta be honest, I'm starting to feel a bit bad about the dogpile going on here. Therefore, I've decided to play Devil's advocate and jump into the discussion as part of team of Wehraboo. I've put together a carefully crafted list of evidence to help convince you all.

 

Exhibit A:

 

Spoiler

 

 

I think that speaks for itself, but if somehow that objective assessment by a SME doesn't have you convinced, then please take a look at Exhibit B:

 

 

According to most sources, Panther tanks maintained an average readiness rate of anywhere from 30-35% for the first two years after their introduction, AND YET, in the picture I have provided, you can clearly see no less than TWELVE Panther tanks, all of which appear to be running perfectly. Let me remind you that 30% of 12 is ~4, NOT 12. This clearly and definitively debunks all of these claims as nothing more than exaggerated, baseless lies that rely on cherry picked, if not completely fabricated, data sets from Allied reports desperately trying to save face.

 

Finally, Exhibit C:

 

 

Here you can clearly see a column of the "super reliable" T-34. Oh, but what's this? It appears that in actuality, NONE of them are in working condition. That's a readiness rate of 0%. Another thing to point out is that Allied shitbox apologists always point to the Panther's dependence on railway transportation to arrive at the front. But, what's this we see?

 

 

 

Could that be... a rail? That's right, yet another of the Panther-haters' claims proven to be nothing but projection. 

 

Check and mate, haters. I'd delete the thread at this point if I were you, because this is just embarrassing.

 

[delete013]

4 hours ago, DogDodger said:

 

Indeed. The state of German automotive technology...

 

To quantify this a bit, Ristuccia and Tooze in "Machine tools and mass production in the armaments boom: Germany and the United States, 1929-44" note that Germany did make strides in increasing the number of gear-cutting machines in service, going from at least 10,407 in 1939 to 28,621 in January 1945. Even with these increases, compared to the US there were only 0.74 gear-cutting machines per German metalworking employee in 1945.

 

In short, they were fucked from the get go. Also, the economy was not mobilised until 1943, because, among other reasons, nobody even remotely expected to be able to counter the Allied numbers. The early tanks were quite costly, and panthers were only some 25% more expensive than Pz4.

Frankly, I have no idea what is needed to build gear-cutting machines but early mobilisation would be likely advantageous. Sectors of industry also suffered quite significantly from certain bombing raids.

[delete013]

10 minutes ago, ADC411 said:

Guys, I've gotta be honest, I'm starting to feel a bit bad about the dogpile going on here. Therefore, I've decided to play Devil's advocate and jump into the discussion as part of team of Wehraboo. I've put together a carefully crafted list of evidence to help convince you all.

 

Check and mate, haters. I'd delete the thread at this point if I were you, because this is just embarrassing.

 

You say that while shitposting?

[Sturgeon]

6 hours ago, Lord_James said:

Anybody else just... mentally exhausted? Who new just reading about people talking to a brick wall would be tiring, let alone actually arguing with said brick wall. Blessings to you, brave souls. 

 

Oh you must be new.

[Sturgeon]

1 hour ago, ADC411 said:

Guys, I've gotta be honest, I'm starting to feel a bit bad about the dogpile going on here. Therefore, I've decided to play Devil's advocate and jump into the discussion as part of team of Wehraboo. I've put together a carefully crafted list of evidence to help convince you all.

 

You shouldn't. It's what they deserve. It's what this forum was founded on. Wehraboo hunts make the clan of the comieboo strong. Aroo! Aroo! Aroo!

[Sturgeon]

1 hour ago, ADC411 said:

Exhibit A:

 

Um excuse me sir this forum is a no animea zone.

[Sturgeon]

1 hour ago, delete013 said:

You say that while shitposting?

 

Just now realizing that you're staring down an entire tribe of veteran cavemen drunken monkey jutsu wehraboo hunters who will dance all over you while shitposting and never spill a drop of beer?

Good.