IronDuke_slith
Posts: 1595
Joined: 6/30/2002 From: Manchester, UK Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: IronDuke But they couldn't produce 1000 40 widget wonders in these terms. By 1943, the situation you describe was improving as Guderian became Inspector of Armoured troops and began sorting the situation out aided by Speer who also saw the nonsense of this. Fact is, by mid 1944, they had standardised on a Lg MKIV battalion and a Panther Battalion in each Panzer division. quote:
ORIGINAL: Rune IversenJust how many german units actually had this make-up by the time of say, The Ardennes offensive? Not relevant. We were discussing standardisation. By the Ardennes, the Germans couldn't achieve the above make up because they didn't have enough weapons, not because they were producing 120 different models. They did start adding TDs into the armoured units to make up the gap (didn't Peiper take some?) but in normandy, aside from the 21st Panzer and either the 9th or 10th SS (can't remember which of the top of my head, quite possibly both) the others had this sort of make up if memory serves. Liebstandarte, Das Reich, 2nd Panzer, 9th Panzer (although its Panther unit was still forming and training), HitlerJugend snd 116th Panzer all had a MKIV and a Panther Battalion. quote:
What tigers they had were Corp or Army assets grouped into Heavy Battalions (save for a few in the Lehr if memory serves). They weren't producing much else, and what else they fielded was usually captured. quote:
StuGs my dear ID. StuGs. And coming out of the wazoo as well. 1944 was a good year for StuGs. Lord knows they had little else to use the MK III Hull production on. I class these as TDs, mentioned in the next section. quote:
The extra hulls were generally being used to produce TDs, weren't they, which because they needed no turret, could be produced more easily than Tanks anyway and were arguably a better bet given the defensive nature of the campaigns they were fighting. quote:
But they were also using "40 widget" hull types for the production of redundant Hvy Jagdpanzer types (Ferdinand, Jagdpanther/Tiger) and such total boondoggles as the Sturmtiger..... Every nation had boondoggles. If memory serves, they produced two prototype Maus as well. I thought the Jagdpanther a good weapon. How many of the others did they actually produce combined?
_____________________________
|