|
henri51 -> RE: The "myth" of superior German equipment? (4/12/2011 1:21:25 AM)
|
Two things: one has to compare weapons from the same period, so obviously weapons developed in 1944 were generally superior to weapons developed in 1940.
Someone mentioned that the Sherman Firefly was equal to the German MkIV. Whether it was or not, the Sherman with the gun equal to the Panthers' was distributed with only a few per battalion, the rest of the battalion being mostly Shermans with the weaker gun. As far as I know, there were never any tank companies equipped with a majority of Fireflies.
OK a third thing: the Panther was originally copied from the T34, but when Hitler saw the model, he rejected it on the basis that it looked too much like the Soviet tank. Obviously when the Panther finally came into general use in 1942, the T34s they were facing were mostly upgunned and up-armored T34s. It is clear that both the Soviets and Americans opted for quantity over quality, a choice that the Germans did not have due to limited productivity.
It is difficult to compare artillery, since the West and the Soviets had so much of it compared to the Germans, but clearly at least the US had better command and control over artillery. But I don't think that the West or Soviets had anything that was as good or better than the 88, an AA weapon that was also used as an effective AT weapon.
Another "weapon" worth mentioning is Intelligence: the Germans lost a number of important battles due to a large extent to failure of intelligence, including being surprised by the first appearence of T34s, and the Battle of Stalingrad (there are many others).From the little I know, I would rank them from best to last: British, Soviet, US, Germans and Japanese (Italians???). It is difficult to rate the US intelligence in Europe, because by the time they got in the war, the Germans were on the defensive (some might argue that they didn't need any...), but one has to give them credit for breaking both the Japanese and German codes (although the latter should perhaps be credited to the Poles for cracking the code and to the British for capturing the Enigma machine -and not the US as in the recent movie).
Henri
|
|
|
|
