Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Paul Vebber

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What's the source for this (the M26 assertion).

I believe Hunnicutt's "Firepower" (heavy tank hisory) I will look into it this evening...

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Well it is 40mm for the reading challenged.

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hmmm Be2c or a Roland c2
hmm Neiuport 17 or an Albatross D2
hmmm sopwith pup or Albatros d3

if being beaten in top speed , endurance , ceiling , manouverability and firepower doesent count as OUTCLASSED for aircraft then what does?

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Hey it is not about some freakn' details it is about equivalency.

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ORIGINAL: Rune Iversen

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ORIGINAL: Paul Vebber

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What's the source for this (the M26 assertion).

I believe Hunnicutt's "Firepower" (heavy tank hisory) I will look into it this evening...

On 24 May 1943 The War Department approved production of 10 T26 tanks as part of a larger production order on T20-series tanks. In an indorsement to an earlier Armored Command letter requesting adjustment to the production numbers of M4, on 13 September 1943 , the Ordnance Department requested production of an additional 500 T26s. General Lesley J. McNair, CG of AGF, successfully opposed this request. On 13 November 1943 General Jacob Devers, CG of the European Theater of Operations, requested production of 250 T26s. Because of McNair’s continued opposition to production of the T26 and other objections, on 7 December 1943 MG Joseph McNarney queried Devers whether his request was based on operational requirements. On 10 December 1943, Devers confirmed his request for production of 250 T26s. As of 21 February 1944 the Ordnance Department estimated first production of the 250 T26s in October 1944. Production actually began in November. Prototypes from the batch of 10 ordered in May 1943 started arriving during February 1944. On 20 May 1944 The Armored Board at Fort Knox emphasized that the T26 was not ready for production in its present state.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m26-pershing.htm

Surely FAS is a reputable (albeit secondary) source

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ORIGINAL: mlees

Forgive me if this has been covered (this thread has grown to 16 pages, after all...)

I was wondering why the Germans stuck with the Panther, even though it was not being produced in the numbers that the Germans needed. (They probably knew, roughly, the size of the Red Army bearing down on them...)

By 1944, Germany was fighting in France, Italy, and a line extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, garrisoning the Balkans (Yugoslavia, Greece), fighting off hordes of Allied bombers, and trying to wage a Uboat campaign, as well as trying to keep it's industrial centers running.

Was there a manpower shortage, such that, it influenced the planners to stick with fewer, but (hopefully) better quality equipment? (In other words: "Well, we could make 45,000 of these MkIV, or 10,000 Panthers. But we only have the manpower to man 15,000 tanks...")

Just thinking out loud. Thank you.

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ORIGINAL: ezz


[Don't be silly... you might as well ask why the coalition is losing in iraq. they have superior weapons , yet they lose , so those weapons can't be superior??????

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Which i'm sure is correct . The Sherman was better than 'good enough' as has been amply demonstated. My complaint was the few who alledged that it was actually THE BEST.

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ORIGINAL: IronDuke



Yes, but we should note that this represented an about face from Devers who didn't want heavies in December 1942.

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The Tank also looked distinctly Germanic in that it wasn't ready for combat (perhaps in part to a lack of urgency about heavies partly engendered by Devers himself - although in the main by MCNair).

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Besides, I thought the ordnance board had proposed building 500, so what did Devers have in mind wanting half that number. I also understood from Ellis and Chamberlain that the armoured board wanted the 90mm putting into M4s rather than anything new and opposed the T26 as well, so there was more holing this proposal than just the usual suspects.

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I do understand that AGF eventually proposed (around April 1944) getting around 8000 of these vehicles, 7000 75mm and 1000 76mm so I'm not sure this proves much save doctrine wanted Cavalry Tanks until harsh experience taught them otherwise.

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22


Just a small comment here. While I think you would expect that the the Panther took a great deal more materials to produce (armor if nothing else) in addition to what the PZIV had, the production numbers for the Panther were actually higher than for the PZIV by several hundred in 44-45 (introduced in 43). The PZIV production was slightly higher than in the previous years in 44, but the Panther still beat it.

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ORIGINAL: Rune Iversen

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22


Just a small comment here. While I think you would expect that the the Panther took a great deal more materials to produce (armor if nothing else) in addition to what the PZIV had, the production numbers for the Panther were actually higher than for the PZIV by several hundred in 44-45 (introduced in 43). The PZIV production was slightly higher than in the previous years in 44, but the Panther still beat it.

A logical consequnce of full economic mobilization and rationalization, coupled with an unsuccesful attempt to switch from one type to another.

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22


So do you really think they wanted to eliminate the PZIV in favor of the Panther?

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I wouldn't make that same argument for german light tanks compared to PZIV's and Panthers, mainly because the light ones were pretty much incapable of taking out an allied tank even from side and rear shots

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22

I don't think you understood what I was saying. You cannot base production figures alone on whether they wanted to phase it out or not during WWII. It's about intent. In the case where I say that I think they did the right thing in that regard, then clearly if it were up to me I would have intended for what happened to have happened, and yet the figures would be the same, whereas they might not had intended to entirely eliminate them (and it wasn't eliminated anyway).

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What I'm trying to say, is that if they really intended to eliminate PZIV production in favor of the Panther, which I believe 'eliminate' is the word you used, then clearly they wouldn't have botched it so badly to keep producing so many PZIV's a good two years after the Panther introduction. Maybe given another 1-2 years they would have stopped producing it completely in favor of the Panther, but as things stood during WWII, they didn't even come close, but merely had it to the point of producing more Panthers. If the war had lasted another 2-3 years, the germans would had been stupid to entirely stop making the PZIV in favor of the Panther. The Panther just took a lot more to produce.

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I don't have the link here at work, but I have seen charts that seemed to suggest that light "tanks" simply weren't produced anymore after '44 in germany. That's not to say they didn't produce Pumas for example, but that wasn't technically a light tank anyway, though in many ways it could pretty much function as one. They also might had been making light tank "hulls" for the likes of assault guns and so forth, but I was talking about entire tanks produced themselves and not just hulls.

So did I completely understand you?

Oh, nevermind the last paragraph, I don't know how I didn't see that you were basically agreeing that the lighth tanks weren't being made anymore, but only their hulls. I thought you were trying to argue that light tanks were being produced just because their hulls were. By the way, as far as armored cars go, I don't think you could use a light tank hull on those. I think it would have to be classified more like an assault gun or tank destroyer.

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Yup. And the germans clearly intended to phase out the Panzer IV. Otherwise they wouldn´t use half the 1944 and the majority of the 1945 MK IV hull production run to make anything but MK IVs proper. Compare with the 1943 MK IV hull production run, where about 80% of the produced hulls are completed as MK IV Tanks proper.

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Yup. And the germans clearly intended to phase out the Panzer IV. Otherwise they wouldn´t use half the 1944 and the majority of the 1945 MK IV hull production run to make anything but MK IVs proper. Compare with the 1943 MK IV hull production run, where about 80% of the produced hulls are completed as MK IV Tanks proper.

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or not.

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Compare the '43 figures to the '44 for the PZIV. From the charts I saw the PZIV "increased" in '44 around 100 PZIV's more than in '43, and as such I see no intent to phase them out, at least not entirely.

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Just a vague look at the '45 production and it looks to me that when it is compared to Panther production that the '44 ratio has changed very little if any, which means they certainly weren't phasing it out even if they wanted to.

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There's no doubt that many people might think it a better idea to phase it out more strongly than they did, but if they intended to phase it out entirely you would think the production figures would have dropped at least 25% lower than the Panther.

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Naturally the total production of all types of tanks weren't as good in '45, but the ratio between the two tanks didn't change much at all.

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Oh yes, I have considered that, but two years is a long time for the ratio of PZIV's to Panthers to basically not change at all.

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It's pretty clear they re-tooled no more than 10% to Panthers, and probably far
less than that.

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So how long did it take the USA to stop producing Grants and start re-tooling to Shermans? Far less than two years apparently; probably less than 9 months. If they said they really wanted to eliminate the PZIV for the Panther, they look like pretty empty words to me.

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The number of Panthers (Hulls) rises from an approximate 63-37% relationship to a 60-40% relationship from 1944-45. In the MK IVs favor. The relationship between tanks proper are 54-46 (1944) and 57-43 (1945) Both in the Panthers favor. The corresponding numbers for 1943 is 68-32 (hulls) and 62-38 (tanks proper). Both in the MK IVs favor. What does this show you?

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Non sequitur. The US M3 and M4 hulls were largely interchangeable, and the uptooling of production lines a mere triviality. The MK IV and Panther hulls weren´t (to put it mildly) The US also had industrial capacity to spare, something that Germany didn´t have in 1944-45, where all manner of pre war hull designs (some even in their original form)were kept in production in order to make up the numbers of Germanys dwindling armoured fleet. The majority of those hulls were used as basis for assault guns though, not proper tanks. And so it was with the MK IV as well.

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22
I know what it shows, it's just that it doesn't seem to back your contention that they failed to eliminate the PZIV.

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IOW, it's more than a failure here, it's more like an out and out lack of desire to even gradually phase it out, much less eliminate it. If they had the slightest inclination to eliminate it, that had to be one of the worst eliminations in history.

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Picking the Grant/Sherman may not had been a very good idea as an overall example, but I couldn't think offhand of another medium that re-tooled to another medium like that. For example the T34's weren't a very fundamental shift throughout it's series. I also realize their being USA tanks didn't help matters much either in terms of what I was trying to say, but it's all I could think of.

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The Panther was introduced before '44 of course, but maybe you mention the re-tool difficulty for only 44-45 because that might supposedly be the period where they decided to re-tool for elimination of the PZIV, and not before.

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I don't care how difficult it was for germany to pulll it off, there clearly was very little effort there, so I do think they really didn't put a lot of thought behind any statements in that regard.

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The only thing that could be construed as elimination, would be that they might had decided to not allow any new factories to produce PZIV's, but then that has nothing to do with re-tooling.

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It might also be accurately stated that if a PZIV factory were destroyed through bombing, that to further the elimination theory they would also not re-build the factory, whereas they would bother to re-build a Panther one.

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ORIGINAL: Terminus

Good Lord, you're arrogant...

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For the reasons stated above. Besides, they do gradually try to phase it out. The production figures shows us as much. It really is that simple. The percentage of MK IVs in relation to MK Vs (tanks proper) goes down from one of 62-38 to one of 43-57. Or to put it more bluntly: For each two Panther in 1943 they produced three MK IVs. Not so in 1945, where the relationship is slightly lower than 1:1 in the Panthers favor. 5 Panthers produced for each 4 MK IVs. They were gradually phasing it out. The production numbers shows that it was so.