

Which Nation Will You Choose First? USA - Germany - USSR - British
#702 Posted 15 December 2016 - 03:25 AM
lendlease, on 17 October 2016 - 03:32 PM, said:
the reason US tanks didn't improve at the front line was because both Patton and Montgomery said, in effect, "these M4 babies will do".
They said this after the North Africa campaign, where M4 was a huge step up from most early British tanks, and the M3.
The M4 was perfectly adequate for North Africa. However, the nasty Germans learned their lesson, there and in Russia, and by the time of Normandy the M4 was entirely outclassed -as was the shiny new Cromwell.
The US tanks, and British ones, which could have been combat ready for Normandy were the M46 and the Comet, both better than Panther and Tiger II.
It was poor British and American planning which left crews in inferior tanks for the Northern Europe campaign.
Read "Tank Men" by Robert Kershaw, he interview many surviving crews (American, Brit, German, Soviet) in the early 2000s, plus did a lot of research.
If you're ever in England, get to the Tank Museum, this stuff is well explained.
It's a scandal really. One quote in the book I mentioned is from a German tank gunner, talking about Normandy.
He says something like:
"we were astonished... How could it be? The Americans, with all their wealth and all the raw materials the British with all their experience, how were they not attacking us with the best tanks in the world?"
I think this might be overstating things a bit. I would agree that the U.S. became complacent with the early Shermans after N. Africa, and they should have pushed for quicker development of upgrades and follow-on models. However, it's worth keeping in mind that:
1. Going into Normandy, even U.S. tank crews were happy with their Shermans. In particular, the 75mm gun had a much better H.E. shell compared to the '76mm on the Easy Eight. That pivots us to:
2. U.S. Armored doctrine relying on the TD for anti-armor, and thinking of the tank proper as a breakthrough vehicle and infantry-support platform. WG's researcher, Nick Moran ('The Chieftan has a fascinating online presentation on American TD doctrine. The whole thing is long, but he makes an interesting case that the TD concept wasn't as crazy as it's often been presented. Tanks actually spent a lot less time fighting other tanks than popular culture (and our awesome game!) would have us think; on offense, tanks primarily supported infantry. When you ran into enemy armor, U.S. doctrine called for massive supporting air and artillery fire as the main solution to the problem.
3. Few enemy tanks. While the Panther and Tiger outclassed the Sherman on paper, there were relatively few of them (the Pz. IV was more common, and it was arguably inferior to the M4). While stories like Michael Witman's epic rampage in Normandy present images of Tiger's mercilessly one-shotting everything in their path while bouncing spitballs in return, that was pretty rare. While probably still a poor decision, it was at least understandable that American planners didn't think rushing upgraded tanks to the front was a top priority. After all, what they had, worked perfectly well most of the time. Nick Moran again has a great presentation on this, with his "Myths of American Armor" presentation. He notes that the Sherman (especially the Easy Eight) did pretty well statistically, and was not a notorious fire hazard. Survey's of armored engagements routinely showed that whoever saw the enemy first and got the first shot off, usually won the fight. Given that the Germans were on the defensive, and able to fight from prepared positions against American tanks in the open, the actual rough parity in kill ratios is pretty remarkable.
4. Don't forget logistics. While the Pershing might have been available in the Summer of '44 if it had been rushed forward, it was logistically much more intensive than the Sherman. In particular, the Sherman easily fit on existing rail cars and through tunnels (it was an original design requirement), and the extra size of the Pershing meant that a single transport ship could carry far fewer M26's than M4s. On top of that, a new tank would've meant new training and spare parts lines. There was a virtue to running everything through the Sherman for so long, especially when you factor in:
5. Reliability. While it doesn't show up on Blitz, reliability is a huge real-world factor for armored forces; and the Sherman was hands down the absolute king of reliability. A U.S. officer could expect that almost all of his Shermans would usually be in decent working order, while German units suffered worse and worse performance as the war went on (the Panther and Tiger were notoriously labor intensive). German units often had a third of the nominal strength down for maintenance. A broke Tiger can't kill anything. This was one of the reasons the Pershing wasn't rushed into service sooner; it was a real maintenance hog itself.
6. Production. The Sherman was the easiest tank of the war to mass-produce (even more so than the T-34). There was a huge value in being able to throw them out in huge numbers, and it meant that U.S. infantry always had plentiful armor support (which again, was the main job of the tank). Basically, while the Sherman wasn't the best tank by raw performance, it was generally "good enough." And in a massive industrial war where numbers really mattered, "good enough," was very good indeed.
#703 Posted 27 December 2016 - 12:43 AM
#704 Posted 27 December 2016 - 12:58 AM
fabius1453, on 15 December 2016 - 03:25 AM, said:
I think this might be overstating things a bit. I would agree that the U.S. became complacent with the early Shermans after N. Africa, and they should have pushed for quicker development of upgrades and follow-on models. However, it's worth keeping in mind that:
1. Going into Normandy, even U.S. tank crews were happy with their Shermans. In particular, the 75mm gun had a much better H.E. shell compared to the '76mm on the Easy Eight. That pivots us to:
2. U.S. Armored doctrine relying on the TD for anti-armor, and thinking of the tank proper as a breakthrough vehicle and infantry-support platform. WG's researcher, Nick Moran ('The Chieftan has a fascinating online presentation on American TD doctrine. The whole thing is long, but he makes an interesting case that the TD concept wasn't as crazy as it's often been presented. Tanks actually spent a lot less time fighting other tanks than popular culture (and our awesome game!) would have us think; on offense, tanks primarily supported infantry. When you ran into enemy armor, U.S. doctrine called for massive supporting air and artillery fire as the main solution to the problem.
3. Few enemy tanks. While the Panther and Tiger outclassed the Sherman on paper, there were relatively few of them (the Pz. IV was more common, and it was arguably inferior to the M4). While stories like Michael Witman's epic rampage in Normandy present images of Tiger's mercilessly one-shotting everything in their path while bouncing spitballs in return, that was pretty rare. While probably still a poor decision, it was at least understandable that American planners didn't think rushing upgraded tanks to the front was a top priority. After all, what they had, worked perfectly well most of the time. Nick Moran again has a great presentation on this, with his "Myths of American Armor" presentation. He notes that the Sherman (especially the Easy Eight) did pretty well statistically, and was not a notorious fire hazard. Survey's of armored engagements routinely showed that whoever saw the enemy first and got the first shot off, usually won the fight. Given that the Germans were on the defensive, and able to fight from prepared positions against American tanks in the open, the actual rough parity in kill ratios is pretty remarkable.
4. Don't forget logistics. While the Pershing might have been available in the Summer of '44 if it had been rushed forward, it was logistically much more intensive than the Sherman. In particular, the Sherman easily fit on existing rail cars and through tunnels (it was an original design requirement), and the extra size of the Pershing meant that a single transport ship could carry far fewer M26's than M4s. On top of that, a new tank would've meant new training and spare parts lines. There was a virtue to running everything through the Sherman for so long, especially when you factor in:
5. Reliability. While it doesn't show up on Blitz, reliability is a huge real-world factor for armored forces; and the Sherman was hands down the absolute king of reliability. A U.S. officer could expect that almost all of his Shermans would usually be in decent working order, while German units suffered worse and worse performance as the war went on (the Panther and Tiger were notoriously labor intensive). German units often had a third of the nominal strength down for maintenance. A broke Tiger can't kill anything. This was one of the reasons the Pershing wasn't rushed into service sooner; it was a real maintenance hog itself.
6. Production. The Sherman was the easiest tank of the war to mass-produce (even more so than the T-34). There was a huge value in being able to throw them out in huge numbers, and it meant that U.S. infantry always had plentiful armor support (which again, was the main job of the tank). Basically, while the Sherman wasn't the best tank by raw performance, it was generally "good enough." And in a massive industrial war where numbers really mattered, "good enough," was very good indeed.
the way I heard things was the Sherman was a tank of quantity not quality. Using numbers to bring down German tanks. Germans would rather have a few good things than a whole bunch of mediocre things. Their car manufacturers still show this to this day. There's no farfignugen in a pinto or a Georgia metro. The amount of craftsmanship and engineering that went into the engine blocks alone was remarkable. The little details on the tanks like the textured armor so limpit mines wouldn't stick. To just look at the texture looks like poor work but was effective. The list goes on. The Sherman was a tiny little thing with mass produced by car manufacturers to up the number of tanks to keep up. Look at the crashbox transmission.
#705 Posted 27 December 2016 - 02:55 PM
#706 Posted 27 December 2016 - 10:35 PM
#707 Posted 04 January 2017 - 05:08 PM
Moved to the Germans. Rage quit.
Starter the Americans, got bored.
Tried out the British, gave up bitterly.
Went back to the USSR, Germany and USA.
Tried the Japanese. Just. Gave. Up...
Currently on USSR, USA and Germany .
Edited by BakalovBoy, 04 January 2017 - 05:21 PM.
#708 Posted 04 January 2017 - 05:15 PM
#709 Posted 17 January 2017 - 04:44 AM

#710 Posted 17 January 2017 - 04:48 AM
Efrain_Luna_2016, on 20 August 2016 - 10:20 PM, said:
URSS will be my first bet, IS was the best tank in war, (germans were told to fight them only at close range), KV-2, SU-152 and ISU-152 shots destroy entire tanks just with HE (turrets flew far far away after 152mm shots), T-34 did well(tons of stories about them), KV line are mobile side-scrapping bunkers, SPGs aren't that good though.
Then I would go Germany, they had really good engineers, ideas, and stuff like that.
USA just produced Shermans and wolvies in real life, most high tier tanks are prototypes, dunno why they didn't develop some of them.
Japanese tanks are designed to defend their country, not to invade other countries.
And UK....., well, crusaders had to get close to panzers to do something to them, Churchill tanks were good but not that "bunker".
When the Mt-25, LTTB, and T-54 Prot. came out, I went back to the T-34 and did something different, rather than the bigger gun that averages I think 120-200 dmg, I did the faster shooting, higher penning gun, even though average damage I got was around 90-100 dmg, the speed and reload made the T-34 become a tank that I might go back to again, just for fun

#712 Posted 29 January 2017 - 02:52 PM
Tomio Hara was the chief of Japanese tank development during the pre war period and WWII
Want to cap base? Read this!
#714 Posted 09 February 2017 - 01:12 AM
Tier 10s: All 32 tanks including 3 Premiums and 2 Collector Tanks
Premiums: 87 Tanks- 3 Tier 10, 4 Tier 9, 33 Tier 8, 21 Tier 7, 12 Tier 6, 10 Tier 5
Collector Tanks: 73 Tanks- 2 Tier 10, 4 Tier 7, 6 Tier 6, 9 Tier 5, 15 Tier 4, 25 Tier 3, 15 Tier 2
Currently Grinding: T-34-2G FT (all other lines done)
Masteries: 217/357
#717 Posted 23 February 2017 - 05:51 AM
[Insert totally edgy/impressive signature here]
#718 Posted 23 February 2017 - 03:27 PM
#719 Posted 23 February 2017 - 03:31 PM
-thx, sparticusdiablo for the signature
Favorite tanks: 112, Type62, Type59, Strv74a2, KV-1S, WT Pz IV, Amx1390, Ke-Ni, Bt-7, PZ IIIa, Stug III G, VK 100.01 (P)
Tanks ive mastered: 112, type62, type59, ke-ni, bt-7, pz3a, stug3g, type2957 chi-ha, ac4, kv2, kv1s, m3 stuart, vk30.02m, pz4 anko sp, type t34, m5a1 stuart, amx38, panther m10, cruiser 2, hetzer, covenater, bt7 arty, mk1 hvy, r35
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