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Why was the German 88 so great?

 
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Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 3:23:43 PM   
spinecruncher

 

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Status: offline 		I see 88's were used a lot in WW2, by way of mortars and other weaponry. But the German 88 has achieved a special place in history as a dreaded highly effective weapon. Was the configuration of the German 88 just that much better than anything else out there at the time?
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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 3:35:44 PM   
marcdhanna

 

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Status: offline 		Not really configuration but deployment. The Allied 90mm AA was also quite good. The difference is that the Germans knew how to use it early in the war in an anti-tank roll -- through tactical flexibility. The early war British refrained from using their AA for AT roles, even while watching the Germans blow up their Crusaders and Matildas with 88mm AA guns. Rommel was known for drawing in the British tanks on his anti-tank guns, whereas the British seemed inclined to try to duel tank on tank.

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 3:57:59 PM   
Moltke71


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Status: offline 		The 88 had very high muzzle velocity and rate of fire. Originally an AA weapon, the Germans quickly found that it also worked well on the horizontal axis. A drawback was the large silhouette. In the desert, the haze obscured it. Later versions had smaller profiles. The version used in the Tiger was a slightly slower variant.

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 4:00:18 PM   
spinecruncher

 

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Status: offline 		Insightful response. One notorious use of the 88 was when it was stuck on the Tiger line of tanks. I think that made it the most dreaded tank of the war in terms of punch. There is a good scene in Saving Private Ryan, where this Tiger is on the loose and if I recall, but I could be wrong, Tom Hanks character had a tommy gun. Then a mustang drops from the sky to take care of business.

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 4:06:40 PM   
Lobster


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Status: offline 		The Allied AA guns of similar caliber required extensive reconfiguration to be able to be used as AT weapons. Most notably muzzle depression. The 88 could be depressed below horizontal right 'out of the box' and could fire while still mounted on it's carriages. It could be deployed off it's carriages in two and a half minutes too. It was equipped with optics capable of being used for ground to ground firing. It was in every way a superior weapon to anything the Allies had. In North Africa in 1941 two battalions of 88s knocked out over 250 English tanks. It could fire over 20 rounds per minute at ranges greater than the tanks own guns could reach. Many weapon systems have been given undeserved positive reputations since WW2 most of them undeserved. The German 88's reputation is well deserved.

< Message edited by Lobster -- 11/22/2017 4:08:20 PM >

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 4:08:02 PM   
marcdhanna

 

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Status: offline 		The allied 90mm AA also had high muzzle velocity. Nothing special about the 88 there in comparison. I don't think the ROF was that different between the two systems. The allies just didn't use it in that AT role until later in the war (and with deadly effect during the Battle of the Bulge).

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 4:09:10 PM   
marcdhanna

 

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Status: offline 		It's not as if the Allies couldn't have figured out and fixed the problem. They just didn't.

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 4:17:21 PM   
Moltke71


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Status: offline 		In the desert, the Brits had a 77mm AA that would have worked. Junior officers wanted to try but were told "Nonsense, old boy! It says "Anti-aircraft" right on the box."

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 8:10:57 PM   
RFalvo69


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quote:

ORIGINAL: ballyhoo

Insightful response. One notorious use of the 88 was when it was stuck on the Tiger line of tanks. I think that made it the most dreaded tank of the war in terms of punch. There is a good scene in Saving Private Ryan, where this Tiger is on the loose and if I recall, but I could be wrong, Tom Hanks character had a tommy gun. Then a mustang drops from the sky to take care of business.


In that scene Tom Hanks actually has a handgun.

There is a scene, shortly before, where the Tiger fires against, IIRC, a wall used by the Americans to protect themselves. The effect is devastating. It was the first time I really understood the power of the German 88.

I also liked the scene with the Tiger in “Fury” {a movie that I liked a lot, even if it seems that I’m in the minority). I accepted the reduced engagement ranges as a cinematic liberty (it allowed for the public to follow the German and American tactics - had they used the correct ranges it would have been difficult to understand who was doing what and why). Seeing a single Tiger wipe out a whole American tank platoon just like that was scary...

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 9:09:43 PM   
Moltke71


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Status: offline 		True story. My dad was in Europe with 3rd Army. One day, he was on the west side of a valley's ridge. He could see the outline of a German tank on the opposite ridge. Three Shermans in line abreast started a dash across the valley floor. Three German shots; three burning Shermans. Dad decided to head back to his battery (105s)

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 10:03:27 PM   
Sniper31


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Status: offline 		Well RFalvo69, I very much enjoyed the movie Fury, so you are not alone in liking it. Sure, it has it's moments that ymake you question certain things. But as a career light Infantryman myself with 28 years of active service and counting, I am past the point of judging movies based on reality. They are movies, and therefore entertainment. Fury is a movie that very much entertained me. I thought the producers and cast did an impressive job with that Tiger scene, setting the level of stress under fire, high tension, and the life and certain death struggle going on in that field. That aspect I can directly relate to, and I feel they did a great job conveying that. I also thought, in my opinion, that they did a serviceable job of demonstrating the strength of the Tiger and her 88 as well as the amount of respect and sometimes fear the Tiger gave the Allied tanker crews.

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 10:23:06 PM   
Gandalf3019

 

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Status: offline 		The 88 was a great antitank gun as pointed out above. The statement "It was in every way a superior weapon to anything the Allies had" is nonsense. The USA had a 90mm AA gun that was its equal but generally not used in an antitank role. The Brits had the 17 pounder. USSR had 100mm and 122mm AT guns. All of these had equivalent penetration to the 88 and in the AT role had a lower silhouette compared to the AA version of the 88. There was a version of the 88 on an AT mount but that was rare, IIRC there was major problems with the mount under that much stress. Something that never gets brought up in these discussions is exactly what ammo are you talking about. The Sherman's 76 using APCR had BETTER penetration than the Tiger's 88 using normal AP rounds. While the Germans also had special ammo, it was more scarce to begin with and became even more rare as the war went on. So while comparing APCR to AP is apples and oranges, the western allies got more of the special ammo and it became more available as time went on. BTW there were different 88s used by the Germans. I am refering to the ones like that used on the Tiger I and the famous AA gun. The 88 on the Tiger II was more powerful

One thing that must be said is all reports of German guns or tanks has to be taken with a massive grain of salt. Soldiers reported every gun as an 88 and every tank as a Tiger. This is especially true in Normandy where the restricted terrain of the bocage led to very close engagement ranges. In that situation the 88 had virtually no advantage compare to the 75 (both cut through armor like butter at those ranges) and the 75 was much easier to conceal. In fact there were very few allied tanks taken out by 88s in Normandy (according to data directly from the German 88 units) as most were held back for INDIRECT FIRE (something the AT 75 could not do) and surprisingly AA fire.

When looking at tank on tank engagements you will see endless drivel about how wonderful the German tanks were compared to the allied tanks. It's pretty much all nonsense. 'It took 5 Shermans to take out one Tiger' is repeated endlessly, yet there is absolutely no battlefield data to support it. In fact, the single biggest determinant of who won a tank duel was (by far) who shot first, not which tank, which gun, which nation, etc was shooting. Of course the whole topic of tank on tank is overblown. In NE Europe, prior to Germany, more than half of all battlefield losses of Shermans were to AT guns. Only about 10% were to tanks or AFVs. After entering Germany, mines became the biggest Sherman killers. In terms of what tanks did, any way you look at it they used far more MG ammo than gun ammo. For the main gun, more of the ammo used was HE (i.e. used against soft targets).

As an aside, the HE characteristics are never discussed even though HE was used more than AP and the vast majority of threat to the tank were soft targets (AT guns, infantry, infantry with AT weapons like a panzerfaust, etc.). People talk about how the US were imbeciles keeping the 75 over the 76. The reality was that the 76 shell had about half the explosive as the 75 since the casing for the 76 was thicker due to the higher muzzle velocity. Which would you rather have, a gun that is twice as effective against 90% of the threat to your life or one that is 4 times as effective against 10% of the threat?

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 10:45:38 PM   
PoorOldSpike


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Status: offline 		The 88 made its fearsome reputation early in the war in France 1940 when the heavily-armoured Brit Matilda tanks were going through SS Totenkopf like butter and Rommel had to bring up heavy guns including 88's to stop them.

Gen. Guderian quote from 'Panzer Leader' page 114-
"On the 21st of May a noteworthy event occurred to the north of us: English tanks attempted to break through in the direction of Paris. At Arras they came up against the SS Division Totenkopf which had not been in action before and which showed signs of panic"

The standard German AT gun at that time was the little 37mm Pak (half-jokingly called the 'Doorknocker' by the Germans), so the 88's massive shell (below) was a quantum leap.
Other German guns like 105mm field guns firing direct also packed a wallop but were low-velocity and therefore only accurate at short range, whereas the high-vel 88 was accurate out to phenomenal ranges.


http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=ForumsPro&file=viewforum&f=134

PS- The following year in North Africa and the Russian steppes the 88 cemented its dreaded reputation when it was able to pick off tanks at very long range in the open terrain.
And as other guys have said in this thread, the USA/Brit/Russians also developed AT guns later in the war that were as good as the 88.

< Message edited by PoorOldSpike -- 11/22/2017 11:02:57 PM >

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 10:46:56 PM   
spinecruncher

 

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Status: offline 		okay what about when a Tiger came across a KV 2, or even a T 34? Or even a bazooka squad from the rear?

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 11:05:58 PM   
PoorOldSpike


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quote:

ORIGINAL: ballyhoo

okay what about when a Tiger came across a KV 2, or even a T 34? Or even a bazooka squad from the rear?


What about it? Tigers could make mincemeat of KV-2's and T-34's from any direction, and could switch to high-explosive shells and MG's to toast infantry..:)

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/22/2017 11:15:02 PM   
winkr7

 

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Status: offline 		I think they were Italian 90 mm AA guns that first got used as AT guns in north africa. Then it kind of caught on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannone_da_90/53

< Message edited by winkr7 -- 11/22/2017 11:16:36 PM >

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 12:34:21 AM   
Meyer1

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gandalf3019
IIRC there was major problems with the mount under that much stress. Something that never gets brought up in these discussions is exactly what ammo are you talking about. The Sherman's 76 using APCR had BETTER penetration than the Tiger's 88 using normal AP rounds. While the Germans also had special ammo, it was more scarce to begin with and became even more rare as the war went on. So while comparing APCR to AP is apples and oranges, the western allies got more of the special ammo and it became more available as time went on. BTW there were different 88s used by the Germans. I am refering to the ones like that used on the Tiger I and the famous AA gun. The 88 on the Tiger II was more powerful






I guess you are talking about the 8.8cm L56. The Kwk 43 is a different story. And the american HVAP ammo for the 76mm was very rare too. Zaloga mentioned that by late 44 crews only had one or two HVAP available.

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 12:34:36 AM   
RFalvo69


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quote:

ORIGINAL: winkr7

I think they were Italian 90 mm AA guns that first got used as AT guns in north africa. Then it kind of caught on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannone_da_90/53


I don't know if they were the first, but the Italian 90mm was as powerful as the German 88mm - it simply didn't became as famous as his cousin

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 12:43:46 AM   
Meyer1

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gandalf3019




In NE Europe, prior to Germany, more than half of all battlefield losses of Shermans were to AT guns. Only about 10% were to tanks or AFVs. After entering Germany, mines became the biggest Sherman killers. In terms of what tanks did, any way you look at it they used far more MG ammo than gun ammo. For the main gun, more of the ammo used was HE (i.e. used against soft targets).




Sorry, but those numbers are way off.

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 12:46:03 AM   
Meyer1

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: PoorOldSpike

The 88 made its fearsome reputation early in the war in France 1940 when the heavily-armoured Brit Matilda tanks were going through SS Totenkopf like butter and Rommel had to bring up heavy guns including 88's to stop them.




I should do some digging to back it up, but I'm pretty sure that what stopped the British attack was the divisional artillery, the Flak guns had little to do with that.

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 12:53:54 AM   
RFalvo69


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sniper31

Well RFalvo69, I very much enjoyed the movie Fury, so you are not alone in liking it. Sure, it has it's moments that ymake you question certain things. But as a career light Infantryman myself with 28 years of active service and counting, I am past the point of judging movies based on reality. They are movies, and therefore entertainment. Fury is a movie that very much entertained me. I thought the producers and cast did an impressive job with that Tiger scene, setting the level of stress under fire, high tension, and the life and certain death struggle going on in that field. That aspect I can directly relate to, and I feel they did a great job conveying that. I also thought, in my opinion, that they did a serviceable job of demonstrating the strength of the Tiger and her 88 as well as the amount of respect and sometimes fear the Tiger gave the Allied tanker crews.


I really liked the realism of the tactics. The Tiger fires first from a concealed position against the last tank of the American column: this way the smoke and the flames didn't block its line of sight. The American try to do just that (reverse behind the burning wreck) and fire smoke ammo so to blind the Tiger.

At this point the Tiger commander is in a quandary. Are the Americans approaching and flanking or are they retreating? He chooses to advance beyond the smoke and sees that the Americans are advancing too, trying to pull an envelopment (center, right and left). The Tiger fires and aces another American tank. The third one misses and is smoked. At this point the Tiger and Bad Pitt's M4 are so clolse that they enter into a "turning battle" - where the slower turning speed of the Tiger's turret puts the Germans at a disadvantage. Still, the M4 fires against the Tiger's rear and misses; at the end only the ability to turn the turret and the tank - paired with Brad Pitt's character ability to stay cool under fire allows for the M4 to destroy the German tank - by an hairbreadth.

True, the 76mm gun was stronger, the engagement ranges were cut short etc. But nothing can beat how the director managed to show how tank's tactics worked like in that scene - which is what really counted IMHO.

I remember motoring to Gamesquad after watching the movie, and the Advanced Squad Leader forum was full of people using the movie as a way to explaining how they were better than Patton, why the director should have directed snack commercials and such. And in all fairness I have absolutely nothing to say against, given that the opinion they have of the movie is the same I have of their comments

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 1:29:22 AM   
pellejoens

 

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Status: offline 		Most ppl know about the Swedish 40mm bofors gun. An interesting fact about the 88 is that Sweden was also involved in the early development of the Gun.

"The development of a new gun was funded secretly by the Reichswehr.The resulting 75 mm gun proved adequate to the Swedes, but extensive trials of two German prototypes (the 7,5 cm Flugabwehrkanone L/60 and 7,5 cm Flugabwehrkanone L/59) by the German army proved unsatisfactory and the Germans requested a heavier design. The 75 mm was then modified to include a larger calibre barrel, which was further developed into the 8.8 cm Flak 18/36/37/41, one of the best-known AA guns of World War II.

Nevertheless, despite the German unwillingness to buy the 75 mm variant, the Swedish company decided to start serial production anyway. There were many notable differences between Krupp's design and the one eventually produced by the Swedish company, but both guns shared a similar layout and a cruciform firing platform, which allowed the gun to traverse full 360 degrees and fire in all directions.[1] The platform was lowered to the ground from two wheeled axles, which had to be removed before firing.[1] One of major advantages of the Swedish design over the 88 eventually adopted by Germany was its simplicity: it lacked complicated fire-control mechanisms, but was easy enough to operate by less-well trained crews in poorer countries. (Wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_75_mm_Model_1929


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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 1:35:56 AM   
Lobster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Meyer1

I should do some digging to back it up, but I'm pretty sure that what stopped the British attack was the divisional artillery, the Flak guns had little to do with that.



Arras.

"The Allied attack was contained, because Rommel improvised a gun line of anti-tank guns and anti-aircraft guns, that managed to stop some of the lighter British tanks. Rommel also used wireless to order another gun line quickly to be set up with artillery and several 88 mm Flak 36 anti-aircraft guns much further back, which knocked out 24 tanks in a few minutes on the flat ground between Mercatel and Tilloy. Just after 6:00 p.m., Ju 87 Stukas of Fliegerkorps I and VIII arrived and made 300 attacks on the retiring tanks by 8:30 p.m. Rommel ordered Panzer Regiment 25 to return and cut off the British tanks but south of Duisans met French tanks covering the British right flank and only broke through after a long and costly engagement. When the German tanks had broken through a British anti-tank gun line between Duisans and Warlus, the British tanks had already returned; the British attack had turned into a disaster and only 28 of the 88 tanks committed returned to their start line."

< Message edited by Lobster -- 11/23/2017 1:36:23 AM >

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 6:00:12 AM   
kch

 

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Status: offline 		An additional factor in the claim to fame of the 88, is probably the overall German use of AT weapons. Germany used the AT guns as the main tank killer, instead of other tanks, and therefore German AT guns (and 88s) amassed a lot of kills. The AT guns were pushed forward all the time, and the German tanks often acted as bait in order to draw enemy tanks into range of the AT gun screens.

As for the gun itself then it lost some of its efficiency once the enemy learned how to manoeuvre, and the Germans were forced to move it around in response to the enemy (rather than moving forward and making the enemy react). The high profile meant that it was a very visible target if you were forced to relocate within view of the enemy and the larger calibre weapons in mid/late war meant that HE shells packed a lot of punch causing problems for the 88 AA guns

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 11:05:32 AM   
demyansk


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Status: offline 		The 88 as written was good due to training and tactics of the soldiers who used it. Especially, the training of German tank commanders who had the ability to use communication between tanks to their benefit. Plus, most of the time, the Tiger was overwhelmed by numbers. Take a look at the book by Otto Carius, Tigers in the Mud.

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 4:19:53 PM   
spinecruncher

 

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Status: offline 		Happenstance: I turned on Netflix and a great movie came up from Italy: El Alamein, in the Line if Fire. It portrays a college student volunteer into the Italian Army in '42, well anyways I am only about 20 min into the movie. He is escorted to his unit when bombarded by English 88's. This 88' appears to be the dread of the Italian Corp.

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 9:01:06 PM   
JapLance


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Status: offline 		This "English 88" is a completely different kind of gun:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance_QF_25-pounder

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/23/2017 10:39:03 PM   
spinecruncher

 

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Status: offline 		I recommend this movie:


https://www.amazon.com/El-Alamein-Line-Paolo-Briguglia/dp/B075S4WHDN/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511480290&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=el+alamein%2C+in+the+line+of+fire

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RE: Why was the German 88 so great? - 11/24/2017 12:19:39 AM   
LiquidSky


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Because of the allied bombing, there was an awful lot of 88's around Normandy..... And because they followed a different supply chain through the Luftwaffe (not suggesting it was flown), they were also sitting on ample supplies of ammunition.

Reports of 88's are usually not from Tigers...it is from these flak guns. They were used as AT guns, but also as artillery at Omaha.



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