I've finished reading the above and it had rather a lot of mish mash in the way of figures for destroyed Allied and German tanks. It seemed to me that the Allies were on the loosing end as far as losses of armour was concerned pound for pound in ground engagements. For example the book states that SS-Panzer Abteilung 102 destroyed 227 Allied tanks, 28 anti-tank guns, 19 half-tracks, 4 Bren gun carriers, and 35 lorries between 10th July to 10th August 1944. Although no figures are quoted for this German unit losses it does say it lost most of its armour and at the time it was in Normandy its strength was at 28 Tigers. Thats a 1 in 5 ratio. My question is: Does anyone one have a table of total losses of armour suffered by both sides to ground fire/ non aircraft and naval bombardment? I get the feeling that aircraft played a significant part in German losses but I'm interested in the ratio of armour to armour losses. eg. For every 5 Allied tanks lost the Germans lost one in ground combat. I''m also aware that the Germans suffered heavy losses at Falaise as they started 'Die Ruckmarsch' so the best figures would be from 6th June to just before the retreat which I'm guessing was around the 20th August. Cheers Andy
I don't have this Andy but it is reckoned to be one of the best on the German forces in Normandy. Normandy 1944, German Military Organization…Amazon.co.uk: Niklas Zetterling: Books
From memory I think the mechanical loss rates in Normandy were more like 2:1 in favour of the axis. It's a bit of a specialised area that tends to confuse me greatly, but I know there's much pooh-poohing of many German claims by those that study such things. i'm sure I've heard 'Panzers in Normandy' referred to as a bit iffy in this territory I don't really like any purely statistical analysis of warfare but when you consider the allies were constantly attacking against very well defended positions then the mechanical attrition begins to look not half as bad as first impressions may give. As you're just starting Ruckmarsch, I seem to recall there's some much better overall coverage of the losses for the whole campaign in there. There's also stuff on a very interesting Air branch report that looks at the direct effects of Air power on vehicles. It's conclusions being that air strikes did a lot less specific actual damage to armour than is so often stated, while taking nothing away from air superiority's overall effect on movement etc. (and it's power against softskins). If this Normandy armour stuff interests you Andy I'd strongly recommend a shufti at John Buckley's 'British Armour in the Normandy Campaign'; heavy going but an excellent survey of the achievements and deficiencies of Commonwealth Armour in that theatre, one of the best tank books I've yet read... In fact, one of the best WW2 books I've read overall. : http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/books-movies-tv/17712-what-you-reading-moment-17.html#post129860
Cheers chaps, Without sounding ungrateful it was more my curiosity more than anything else. There just seemed to be (From the Book) rather a lot of Allied tanks destroyed for little return. I was quite surprised by the volume of tanks involved and just how many the Allies lost. It kind of reminded me of the ill fated Infantry advances over no mans land during WW1. The other thing that surprised me (Being the novice that I am) was the repairability of the armour. The Germans always seemed to be bailing out of tanks and towing them back for a line repair to be thrown back into battle. I assume this happened for the Allies too? I think my perception of tanks was a penetration of the armour = destroyed. Cheers for the replies. Andy
The overall loses for Normandy were circa 3500 Allied to 2000 German. It is a complicated area because the inclusion dates of the 2 (3 in reality!)sides do not match and the definition of a destroyed tank differed. However the overall 5:1 ratios you read about are not supported by the facts. Whilst you can find isolated incidents where it did happen some of these were Allied tanks destroying German tanks. The one thing to keep in mind is that the German kill totals you read about are in every case crew claims and NOT confirmed kills. The root cause of all the problems is the uncritical acceptance of these claims and the refusal by the fan-boys to accept they might be inflated! The German themselves realised the problem and applied a 50% reduction across the board to all their crrew claims. The German figures you keep seeing are the pre-reduction raw crew claims that are AT LEAST twice reality. Wittmann was awarded 20+ kills for Villers Bocage and had them all added to his 'official' score but in reality he never saw more than 11 British tanks and it can not even be confirmed he knocked them all out-other Tigers may have helped out. We have all heard of Barkmann's Corner and the claim he held up the US advance all by himself and knocked out lots of Shermans. However we only have the German account because the incident is not mentioned in a single US document. It was so insignificant no one noticed! This is why I asked earlier about 23rd Hussars War Diary: Axis History Forum • View topic - Will Fey and the 14 Shermans he claims for 7/8/44 The figures are also confused by the number of tanks damaged but not destroyed. The usual way of inflating German v Allied 'kills' is to use the Allied total of all destroyed/damged tanks and compare it to German total losses only(i.e exclude their damaged tanks) Nothing gets the Panzer boys in a frenzy as much as disputing their claims-believe me I have the scars to prove it!
I don't have this Andy but it is reckoned to be one of the best on the German forces in Normandy. Normandy 1944, German Military Organization…Amazon.co.uk: Niklas Zetterling: Books I have a copy of that and must say it is an excellent book.
Hi There is no doubt that the German Panzer's were a damn sight better than what the Germans called "Tommy cookers" Or as our men called them; "Ronson lighters" because of the advert for the cigarette lighter that said....Lights first time every time" The Tiger was damn near untouchable. But suffered from mechanical failures...... I can tell you that on the Goodwood offensive, we lost about 400 tanks of all types before we reached the Bourguebus ridge, to the left of Caen. Sapper
I always find it funny how careful are these books in stating how many kills the Knights in Armour made while they were Ruckmarsching and the world was fallling appart beside their ears, while all their maintenance depots were being captured (which is of no matter as we all know Aryan tanks don't need maintenace nor spare parts). In the meantime they always knew with Teutonic precision who, what and where they had killed and kept precise records of. The fact that the "wreck" stayed behind enemy captured ground made no difference either, it had been shot at by a Herrenvolk Panzer, and that's all that's needed for 20 more kills and another Ritterkreuz for a steely eyed Panzer Commander.
I always find it funny how careful are these books in stating how many kills the Knights in Armour made while they were Ruckmarsching and the world was fallling appart beside their ears, while all their maintenance depots were being captured (which is of no matter as we all know Aryan tanks don't need maintenace nor spare parts). In the meantime they always knew with Teutonic precision who, what and where they had killed and kept precise records of. The fact that the "wreck" stayed behind enemy captured ground made no difference either, it had been shot at by a Herrenvolk Panzer, and that's all that's needed for 20 more kills and another Ritterkreuz for a steely eyed Panzer Commander. "Steely-eyed"??? You've been reading Will Fey again havent you???? I dont understand how in the middle of absolute chaos, records were meant to be kept.
Remember my Q was related to losses before Ruckmarsch Then you have no chance of finding the actual losses. The bulk of the German losses did not get onto the books until September (1300). British practice was to send everything needing more than 24 hours to repair back to a depot. It could be weeks before a decision was taken to scrap or repair a hulk. Thus August (1189)and October (831)were their 'catch up' months There are a number of German tallies for various dates in June, July and August: June. 125 PzIV 80 Panther 19 Tiger 27 Stug July 149 PzIV 125 Panther 14 Tiger 68 Stug. August 49 PzIV 41 Panther 15 Tiger 98 Stug As you,can see the August total is way too small and over 100 Tigers had been lost rather than the 48 listed up to August. July's Tiger total is 14 but that many were lost on one day (18/7/44) The figures are not difinitive! UK figures June 124 + Stuart losses July 231 + Stuart losses August 1189 + Stuarts. Really you should add them all up and divide by 3 to get a reasonable monthly total. There is also the problem of including the German Stug. totals. Should they be counted seperately? There are no fixed totals and I think you should realise the problems by now!
Many Thanks M Kenny. One query + Stuarts, what does that part mean? Shame there is no Allied list like the list you posted for the Germans ie Shermans, Fireflys, Churchills etc. Cheers Andy
Shame there is no Allied list like the list you posted for the Germans ie Shermans, Fireflys, Churchills etc. There is. Total losses June '44-May '45 Extracted from the "Half Yearly Reports on the Progress of the Royal Armoured Corps" for June 1945, losses in 21st Army Group NW Europe were - Stuart M3 series 248 Stuart VI 185 M24 2 Sherman 2712 Cromwell 609 Challenger 39 Comet 26 Churchill 656 Total 4475 1944 Only: Stuart M3 series 210 Stuart VI 80 Sherman 1739 Cromwell 435 Challenger 39 Churchill 335 Total 2814 June Sherman 66 Cromwell 42 Stuart ? Challenger 0 Churchill 16 July Sherman 186 Cromwell 28 Stuart ? Challenger 0 Churchill 17 Aug Sherman 547 Cromwell 143 Stuart ? Challenger 2 Churchill 142 US Figures June 171 M4 52 Stuart July 124 M4, 26 Stuart Aug 559 M4, 201 Stuart Sept 447 M4, 116 Stuart
Remember my Q was related to losses before Ruckmarsch Must I understand that you object to a perfectly good rant?
I kind of got the answer I was looking for today on a documentary about Tanks ! The Germans were loosing 1 tank to every 4 Allied tanks. It also mentioned that for the Germans to defeat the Russians their Panzers would have to knock 10 out for every Panzer lost. They got the ratio up to 5:1 according to the experts from Sandhurst and Bovington etc. Cheers Andy
