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How were German armored divisions so much more elite than their US counterparts
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:11 pm
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:11 pm
Went to see Fury and they portray the German tiger tank as nearly impenetrable by US tanks.
How did we get so far behind? How big was the gap?
How did we get so far behind? How big was the gap?
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:12 pm to KosmoCramer
Excuse me while I research this on Google so I can come back and look like I know what I'm talking about.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:12 pm to KosmoCramer
German efficiency.
You can't stop it. Only hope to contain it.
You can't stop it. Only hope to contain it.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:13 pm to KosmoCramer
quote:
they portray the German tiger tank as nearly impenetrable by US tanks
it was, at least for the tanks earlier in the war without the higher velocity guns. germany's equipment was top notch. they weren't fricking around.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:14 pm to KosmoCramer
Same reason they have Mercedes and BMW and we have GM
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:14 pm to BRgetthenet
inb4 Hitler should have won the war but had a lot banker money against him and went into Russia like an idiot.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:14 pm to mailman
it makes for a better film. The "underdog" wins.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:16 pm to KosmoCramer
I would explain but Darth will be here any minute, I'm sure.
This post was edited on 10/24/14 at 7:17 pm
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:17 pm to KosmoCramer
Germans strategy was quality over quantity.
U.S. was quantity over quality.
Worked great for Germany till they ran out of resources.
U.S. was quantity over quality.
Worked great for Germany till they ran out of resources.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:17 pm to KosmoCramer
double post
This post was edited on 10/24/14 at 7:18 pm
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:18 pm to Nativebullet
It was true. The American tanks were light on armor and were gas engines while German tanks ran on diesel. The M1 Abrams coming online helped tremendously.
It took quite awhile to get to that point. They were very adept at tactics as well. Rommel was a genius.
It took quite awhile to get to that point. They were very adept at tactics as well. Rommel was a genius.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:20 pm to KosmoCramer
The Germans believed in tech superiority while we went for numbers. Had the Germans had the Tigers and King Tigers in sufficient numbers, then the outcome may very well have been different. Their main gun was the 88, which at first was a AAA gun,but was fitted on the Tigers. That allowed them to reach out and touch at much farther distances than any Sherman or the like ever could. Their armor was thicker and sloped, too.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:20 pm to DrTyger
They nearly pulled it off though.
They didn't expect Britain and the U.S. to be an enemy.
They didn't expect Britain and the U.S. to be an enemy.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:20 pm to KosmoCramer
quote:
How big was the gap?
bigger than the gap that Bama's D left in JJ's pelvis after 1/9
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:21 pm to KosmoCramer
Just guessing but maybe because they had been seriously preparing for war for something like a decade while we were trying our best to stay away from war.
Heck, I think Roosevelt had to go through all kinds of maneuvers to get any kind of bills through to build up the military. (Saw something about that on one of the AHCTV shows the other day).
ETA: I think when we established air superiority it negated a lot of that advantage though.
Heck, I think Roosevelt had to go through all kinds of maneuvers to get any kind of bills through to build up the military. (Saw something about that on one of the AHCTV shows the other day).
ETA: I think when we established air superiority it negated a lot of that advantage though.
This post was edited on 10/24/14 at 7:24 pm
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:23 pm to KosmoCramer
German engineering was far superior.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:23 pm to Methuselah
quote:
Just guessing but maybe because they had been seriously preparing for war for something like a decade while we were trying our best to stay away from war.
This doesn't really touch on technological superiority.
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:26 pm to BRgetthenet
quote:
They didn't expect Britain and the U.S. to be an enemy.
Hitler didn't hate the UK or the US. He actually respected his western enemies.
Now his enemies to the east, he viewed them as peasants and sub-human. Whenever American and British POWs were taken by Germans, they were given a bed, shelter, clothes and food. If the Germans took any POWs on the Eastern front they wouldn't keep them very long. They would take them out in a field, surround the POWs with barbed wire fences and wait until they starved/froze to death. That's if they didn't just shoot them and bury them in mass graves.
This post was edited on 10/24/14 at 8:51 pm
Posted on 10/24/14 at 7:30 pm to KosmoCramer
Well, the division being "elite" and the equipment being superior are 2 different things.
German units had been fighting since 1939 (in some rare cases, 1938) - a handful of our guys saw action in N. Africa and Italy in 1943, but most of our guys had, at most, 8 to 10 months of combat by April 1945.
As far as equipment, the Tiger was getting to be obsolete by the end of the war, it was heavy, difficult to maintain, less maneuverable than the Shermans to the West and the T-34s to the East, and those tanks were getting incremental improvements in armor and firepower all the time.
Ultimately, it is a common Hollywood trope - German tanks superior to American and Russian tanks - in particular the mythical Tiger. It was a solid, heavy tank with a big gun, but the real prize among the German tanks was the Panther - in a twist, copying ideas from their Eastern Front foes, German tank designers incorporated the best features of their own tanks and those features they admired in the T-34, plus their lessons learned to that point when designing the Panther (Panzer V - whereas the Tiger was the Panzer VI).
They still had light, medium and heavy tanks as distinct categories back then. The Panther was the medium serving alongside the Tiger as the heavy.
Anyway, the Panther is often considered the "best tank in the world" until 1955. The German problem was one of logistics. By the time 1945 arrived, their factories were producing approximately 60 Panthers per month (and fewer of the more resource intensive Tigers) - while the Russians were making ~1,000 T-34s. Plus, we built ~4,100 M4 Shermans with the 75mm, and almost 11,000 M4s with the 76mm gun in 1944 and 1945, alone (the initial years of production).
When you consider that American and Soviet combat vehicle production (all types) approached 1/4 of a million, and German tank production was less than 45k - that's the numbers problem they had.
German units had been fighting since 1939 (in some rare cases, 1938) - a handful of our guys saw action in N. Africa and Italy in 1943, but most of our guys had, at most, 8 to 10 months of combat by April 1945.
As far as equipment, the Tiger was getting to be obsolete by the end of the war, it was heavy, difficult to maintain, less maneuverable than the Shermans to the West and the T-34s to the East, and those tanks were getting incremental improvements in armor and firepower all the time.
Ultimately, it is a common Hollywood trope - German tanks superior to American and Russian tanks - in particular the mythical Tiger. It was a solid, heavy tank with a big gun, but the real prize among the German tanks was the Panther - in a twist, copying ideas from their Eastern Front foes, German tank designers incorporated the best features of their own tanks and those features they admired in the T-34, plus their lessons learned to that point when designing the Panther (Panzer V - whereas the Tiger was the Panzer VI).
They still had light, medium and heavy tanks as distinct categories back then. The Panther was the medium serving alongside the Tiger as the heavy.
Anyway, the Panther is often considered the "best tank in the world" until 1955. The German problem was one of logistics. By the time 1945 arrived, their factories were producing approximately 60 Panthers per month (and fewer of the more resource intensive Tigers) - while the Russians were making ~1,000 T-34s. Plus, we built ~4,100 M4 Shermans with the 75mm, and almost 11,000 M4s with the 76mm gun in 1944 and 1945, alone (the initial years of production).
When you consider that American and Soviet combat vehicle production (all types) approached 1/4 of a million, and German tank production was less than 45k - that's the numbers problem they had.
This post was edited on 10/24/14 at 7:31 pm
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