Monty on Tanks

Idler
Would agree that losing Tanks was always better than losing Infantry as Monty's main dictum was to use steel rather than men on the basis that a Tank could be built in a week whereas it took 20 years to make a man - but he usually meant Artillery shells

Gerry Chester's NIH lost 14 Tanks one day and 51st RTR did the same that same day with some 70 odd casualties in the Liri Valley which was part of Gen. Leese' loss of 50% - without killing any Panthers or 88.mm so 29 Bde did very well

Cheers

 

So the "unhorsed" Tank crews were not Tank crews bit mainly admin staff - not fighting Tank crews.....

I was not clear enough.
Both the 23rd Hussar book/11th AD book (not sure which right now) and the Staff Papers on Goodwood mention the raid. It specificaly says that reforming crews figured large in the losses. Of course with HQ being bombed you find rear area types aslo included.


although you might perhaps have more success with my Tank Commanders widow and her three year old son..
Cheers

Many people died in WW2 but the claim that a UK tank crewman was at more risk than a German one is the point under the microscope.
Yes tank UK tank crews died but was it such that significantly more died than in any other army?

There was a very large medical survey done late war on UK losses. It goes into great detail and contributed to the overall 2 casualties per knocked out tank conclusion.

 

Many people died in WW2 but the claim that a UK tank crewman was at more risk than a German one is the point under the microscope.


Actually, I believe the point of the thread was the relative quality of Allied vs German tanks. The relative risk to the respective crews is more or less a result of that assessment.

 

M Kenny
you were right -you were not clear enough to my mind and as Canuck writes the whole point of this thread was to consider the merits of the British/ American Tanks with the German Tanks - I believe it was you who came up with the Tank crew losses which was just a tad off topic and it appeared - NB appeared -that you were denigrating the Tank crew losses-

no one even hinted that more British Tank crews died than any other army- we all know that is nonsense -IF you are going against a big gun with a pea shooter then the odds are somewhat against you surviving - no matter what the staistics claim - and I repeat - ALL that the British Tanks crews - and no doubt the Americans also was parity with the special 75mm amd the 88mm

Further I would like you to dig out your source of the claim that reforming crews were also killed in the Air raid on 11th Div HQ as MOST survivors were reformed at Squadron level with spare crews from Regiment - not Regimental - Brigade nor as far back as Divisional HQ
Cheers

 

British Army Of The Rhine Battlefield Tour June 1947

page 44

At about 22:00 hours the enemy put in a sharp bombing raid...............the echelons of 29 AB also suffered a large number of casualties, particularly among the tank crews, who had escaped once during the day when their tanks had been knocked out, only to get hit in the evening attack.

Taurus Pursuant (1945)

page 26

However the flares came down and what they most effectively illuminated were the echelons of the Armoured Brigade, then full of reinforcement crews for the morrow......... (they)inflicted losses on the replacement crews..........unfortunately those whose tanks had been knocked out had gone back to the echelons there to suffer heavier losses in the bombing than in the armoured battle from which they had emerged

 

Mkenny

May I add a small comment ?

On comment #22 you say:
Infantry go in to battle completely unprotected. Any weapon can kill them

Aircrew are very thinly protected. A hit over 20mm is certain to down them.

The smallest puncture can do in a whole submarine crew.

The majority of Naval vessels are thinly armoured.

Yet the claim is tank crews need an invulnerable vehicle or somehow they are being sent to certain death.

Not so. The most vulnerable fighting man was, is and always will be an Infantry soldier.
I would start by saying that, without exception, I and every fellow veteran with whom I have ever discussed the matter, have been unanimous in our respect for the PBI for the very vulnerabilty that you quote above.

However, I feel it only right to point out that it was not only the PBI who were sometimes sent against the enemy “completely unprotected”

In March ’45 my then unit, the 4th QOH were equipped with infantry carrying Sherman Kangaroos, completely exposed to overhead fire such as mortars or shellfire and Stuart “Honeys” which had virtually no protection whatsoever, even against small arms fire.

Although I trained in Shermans (75 & 105mm) I never actually fought in one, so I am therefore more than happy to leave that side of the discussion to those who did and who are therefore much more qualified to write from actual experience.


Ron

ps
I discussed the Honey here: BBC - WW2 People's War - Joining the 4th Queen's Own Hussars

 

M Kenny
with your page 44 I would agree that many regimental echelons trucks were busy loading up supplies to take forward to the squadrons and would have been caught in any bombing raid.......on where ? .....as the echelons did most of their work at night when the tanks were being stocked up for to-morrows activities BUT replacement crews would have been at Regimental Hq - NOTBrigade NOR Division

Page 26
merely reiterates what was written on the different reports page 44 - we all have experiencedthis with various writers and they keep on writing the same errors - knocked out Tank crews did NOT go that far back - unless they needed medical treatment on their way to a CCS probably - MOST replacement crews were held at Regiment and taken forward - yes by the Echelons on their way to the various squadrons -

Writers did not always tell the truth or do asmuch research as the subject warrantsas I know of one highly acclaimed Pulitzer prize winner who claimed that a small town in the Liri valley was liberated / captured by the 17th battalion of the 21st Lancers - now that is enoughto make anyone weep for his stupidity and total lack of the merest research.....and he is by no means alone as yet another who should have known better - wrote a fiction about my Troop leaders death and all of his crew which was a nonsense as he was the only one killed of his crew...

So pinches of salt all around I am afraid
Cheers

 

Ron's posting re the Kangeroos he served in brought to mind the origins of the name as it was an idea by Lt.Gen Guy Symonds of the Canadian 1st Corps to carry infantry to the front in Totalize the attack on Falaise and some staff wallah came up the name of Marsupiel which is the true name for the roo's - until it was pointed out that some Scottish infantry night ask - "an' whits a mar soup ial ?" So Kangaroo it was !
Cheers

 

Thinking about the fictional account of my Troop leaders death reminded me on how I contacted that author - gave him both barrels and he was good enough to apologise - then I futher thought that many more would read that account and accept it as the truth -

which caused me to write the true version for the BBc series and I now attach MY version of the truth of that day which was the same day that the Ahrnem attack started..merely to point out that all writers cannot be trusted to write the truth of their own research- or lack of same when they can copy it from somewhere else

BBC - WW2 People's War - The Gothic Line: The Battle for San Martina

Cheers

 

The inadequacies of the M4 Sherman tank--insufficient firepower, too high a silhouette, insufficient armor protection, gasoline engines, narrow tracks--are brought up time and again by the tankers of the 743rd. Of particular interest are the innovative means devised for offsetting the Sherman's shortcomings such as sandbagging the hull to make up for insufficient armor protection, and welding additional ammunition-ready racks in the turret to provide easy access to the additional ammunition needed to score a kill on German armor. Despite these innovations, the 743rd lost 96 M4 Shermans and suffered 141 killed, 22 missing, and 316 wounded. The total casualties, 479, represented the battalion at nearly full strength (p. 126). By comparison, the Third Armored Division lost 780 M4s and the equivalent of 583 tank crews (p. 127). As Folkestad so poignantly notes, "the price for technical inferiority was tremendous" (p. 127).


William B. Folkestad. The View from the Turret: The 743rd Tank Battalion during World War II.

 

The inadequacies of the M4 Sherman tank-- too high a silhouette,
Same height as the Tiger and Panther.


By comparison, the Third Armored Division lost 780 M4s and the equivalent of 583 tank crews (p. 127).

Firstly the numbers are too wooly. Are the 583 'lost' crews the dead including KIA's from the Infantry Regiments in 3rd AD?
The ' 780 M4's lost' certainly include the 170 light tanks lost as well as the 630 Shermans.

3rd AD is always used. The reason?
It was a heavy AD with many more tanks than a normal US AD and its casualties were way above the norm for AD's.
It lost TWICE the numbers of the next AD on the loss list (7th).
For this reason it is always used to 'prove' how inferior the Allies were.
It is like picking the worst performing Tiger Abteilung (505 I think) and using that as a standard for all the Tigers.
3rd AD was the exception and can not be used as an example of the casualties suffered in the other 14 US Armoured Divisions

Polish 1st AD lost

Sherman 172
Cromwell 51
Stuart 35 = 265 tanks
Command Tanks 7

Losses for SFY 1944-45

The SFY Museum lists the total tank losses by type as -
2 Sherman I
6 Sherman Ic
14 Sherman IIDD
34 Sherman III
2 Sherman V
1 Sherman Vc
1 Stuart III
2 Stuart VI
Total 62


11th AD (UK) lost 280 tanks and a total of 717 were repaired.

I make that a 100% turnover for the 3 above.

Again we have no comparison to German losses and thus claims that crew losses were substantialy higher for the Allies are unproven.
Note losing more men/tanks than your enemy when you have 6 times his number (in tanks) is a given.

 

M Kenny
A friend of mine was buried yesterday in the Nottinghamshire area - he was a Tank man managed to survive until he was 97 years old - he served in the desert for many months - Tunisia- Italy mainly at Anzio where he was awarded an M.C. for an heroic action - then on to Greece to quell the disurbances there towards the end of the war - successful civilan life as an executive- married - no family -

He had the same wish as ALL Tank men - give me a bigger gun to match the enemy's guns.

From El Alamein he watched his 2 pounder shots bounce off the enemy's Tanks like tennis balls off a wall - saw a lot of his comrades die in the flames of their Tanks which became furnaces and he was as totally uninterested in the enemy's losses as any other Tank men who were his comrades.....

He knew that he was undergunned for most of the war that is from 1939 until the final whistle in 1945 and he hoped that someday he might be given a gun which would hit back and mean something - but all he ever had was a Sherman with a 75mm gun and STILL against the enemy's special 75mm with it's 19' long barrel and the 88mm with a similarly long barrel......

Now have you ever sat as a 20 year old not long out of school in a Tank knowing that you know that you are heading into an area which has been reported with even just a few Panthers and Tigers swanning around waiting for you .... NO ..?

Because at that point statistics are totally meaningless because if you are anywhere near normal you are scared witless.....and praying that you will see the sunset....

Cheers

 

M Kenny
A friend of mine was buried yesterday in the Nottinghamshire area - he was a Tank man managed to survive until he was 97 years old - he served in the desert for many months - Tunisia- Italy mainly at Anzio where he was awarded an M.C. for an heroic action - then on to Greece to quell the disurbances there towards the end of the war - successful civilan life as an executive- married - no family -

He had the same wish as ALL Tank men - give me a bigger gun to match the enemy's guns.

From El Alamein he watched his 2 pounder shots bounce off the enemy's Tanks like tennis balls off a wall - saw a lot of his comrades die in the flames of their Tanks which became furnaces and he was as totally uninterested in the enemy's losses as any other Tank men who were his comrades.....

He knew that he was undergunned for most of the war that is from 1939 until the final whistle in 1945 and he hoped that someday he might be given a gun which would hit back and mean something - but all he ever had was a Sherman with a 75mm gun and STILL against the enemy's special 75mm with it's 19' long barrel and the 88mm with a similarly long barrel......

Now have you ever sat as a 20 year old not long out of school in a Tank knowing that you know that you are heading into an area which has been reported with even just a few Panthers and Tigers swanning around waiting for you .... NO ..?

Because at that point statistics are totally meaningless because if you are anywhere near normal you are scared witless.....and praying that you will see the sunset....

Cheers

Well said Tom.
You have expressed what so many other veteran tank men have said. Our tanks were inferior in so many respects and particularly the lack of a decent main gun.
When the guys who fought them almost universally condemn the Allied tanks then the statistics become almost immaterial.

Contrast that attitude with fighter pilots. I've never heard a Spitfire pilot return from the war and claim that the military didn't provide him with a weapon at least equal to the enemies.

 

I've never heard a Spitfire pilot return from the war and claim that the military didn't provide him with a weapon at least equal to the enemies.

But a fair few of them moaned about being outgunned - no cannon - in the early days. Of course, that was rectified fairly quickly.

 

But a fair few of them moaned about being outgunned - no cannon - in the early days. Of course, that was rectified fairly quickly.

Good point. The design was inherently sound and the quality of the Spitfire's performance was continually improved throughout the war. That perpetual development and immediate reaction by aircraft manufacturers to German technical advances doesn't have a parallel in the armoured category. The ongoing technology war against the U-Boat threat, by the navy, also seems far more progressive than the tank arm. Certainly the armoured divisions never had the equivilent of a DH Mosquito to give them even a temporary advantage. The basic Sherman and Churchill designs prevailed for 3 years. The addition of the 17 pdr., while very effective, was more of a stop gap measure than a strategic development.

It would be interesting to know the differences between the army, air force and navy with respect to their direct roles in weapons development and the nature of their relationships with manufacturers.

 

When the guys who fought them almost universally condemn the Allied tanks then the statistics become almost immaterial.



The 11th AD Roll Of Honour at the back of Taurus Pursuant give the following deaths for 18/19 July

23H........26 men..........30 tanks
2RTR.......30 men..........57 tanks
FFY.........38 men..........51 tanks
NYEO.......22 men.........53 tanks


Total 116 KIA from 191 disabled tanks. There are documents (WO 171/456, 11 Armoured Division "G" Reports) that say that 30 of the losses were expected to be fit in under 24 hours.


sPzAbt 503 who had 45 Tigers during Goodwood lost 16 men KIA from 2 companies and figures for the other company are not available.

 

Idler
Quote
" but a fair few of them moaned about being outgunned - no cannon -in the early days. of course, that was rectified fairly quickly. "


.....and SOME British Tanks still had the 2 pounder gun in the spring of 1943.....FOUR 17 pounders appeared at Medenine - then were spirited away - next time they appeared was in Sicily July 1943 - One Canadian A/T battery and lost at Arce - 100 to Italy in OCTOBER 1944..... and the war finished when ...?

NOW tell me when the 75mm special appeared on the PZ MkiV 0r the 88mm of the Tiger - early '42 on Rommels first foray from El Agheila.....

THAT is the Tank man's complaint - but others think that the Germans had it tough ....

Cheers

 

MKenny
You sem to be harping still on the wrong subject- but lets be clear on your present figures...

23H - KILLED = 11.0%
2RTR '' = 13.3 %
FFY " = 16.8 %
NYEO " = 9.8 %

and 30% of those losses were never recovered but possibly amongst the wounded were some recovered - but would agree that this was probably light compared to the losses in the PBI and I could care less how many losses were inflicted on the enemy in that or any other battle
Cheers

 

The design was inherently sound and the quality of the Spitfire's performance was continually improved throughout the war. That perpetual development and immediate reaction by aircraft manufacturers to German technical advances doesn't have a parallel in the armoured category

The Focke Wulf was introduced in August 1941 and for 11 months completely outclassed the Spitfire V .
It took 11 months to regain parity with the mk IX

The ongoing technology war against the U-Boat threat, by the navy, also seems far more progressive than the tank arm.

The U-Boat was 'winning' at first (by a large margin) and it again took a long time to get back on top of the problem.

The tank 'problem' became acute in July 1944 and within a year (a normal timescale for these things-see FW 190 above) Allied tanks were produced that achieved parity. Stopgap measures such as the Firefly and special ammo were introduced in the meantime.

This is not to deny any disadvantage. It is the extent this disparity influenced tank crew casualties that is unclear.
It can not be shown that Allied losses were any greater than can be expected in any such madness.