Request for Information

[Dragoon 45]

With all the folks who populate this board, having in some cases some rather esoteric knowledge, I thought I might try this here. I am in the preliminary stages of writing a thesis for college and trying to line up reference material. I need to find a site or book where I can get the costs and manhours invested into the various models of German Tanks used in the war. I realize that the figures will probably be inaccurate, but it will give me a place to start.

I can't recall where I read it, but one work I read stated that for the materials, manpower, and money invested into one Tiger I, the Germans could have built 5 Panthers or 20 Mk-IV's. If this is correct, the Germans could have produced 8500 extra Panthers or 34,000 additional MK-IV's instead of the roughly 1700 Tiger I's they produced.

While I know I am stating a Heresy here for some, but I believe that the Tiger I and II were actually tactical liabilities. The amount of resources committed to the Tiger program could have been much better spent on smaller but more capable tanks. When you check Unit War Journals for the Tiger units one thing stands out, their readiness rate was less than a WW-1 tank. When they worked they were great, but they didn't work very often. There are many examples of a Tiger Battalion having 40-45 tanks on hand but only able to field 2-5 tanks on any given day for weeks on end. True some of this low operational rate would be caused by battle damage that other tanks would not have survived, but the single biggest problem was mechanical un-reliability. I would hazard a guess that the Tiger I or II had a readiness rate of less than 20% overall. True they gave the Germans a tremendous tactical advantage when they had an operational tank available, but wouldn't 5 Panthers or 20 Mk-IV's give them a much better tactical advantage, especially when trying to stop a mass charge of Soviet Tanks?

I can think of other examples where the Germans squandered resourses on grandiose projects, the 80cm Gustav railway gun for starters. My subject for the paper will be that the Germans developed some very impressive weapons on paper that turned into tactical liabilities on the battlefield.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank You.

[Orzel Bialy]

Interesting topic...can't wait to see some of the replies.

OK, here's something to start with. [:)]

According to what I see via the source quoted below the Germans would have managed only a 2 for 1 ratio in building a Panther instead of a Tiger and maybe a 3 for 1 ratio for the Pzkfw IV models.

They would have had more tanks to work with by killing off the Tiger... but even then those increased production numbers would have still left them far behind the production capabilities of the the US and USSR.

"Production was ordered to start in August 1942. It began at a rate of 25 tanks per month and peaked in April 1944 at a rate of 104 per month. It took 300,000 man hours to build one Tiger, almost twice as much time as a Panther required.

The average cost of a Tiger was 250,000 Reichsmarks. In comparison, a PzKpfw III cost RM 96,200, a PzKpfw IV RM 103,500, and a PzKpfw V Panther RM 117,000; all these figures are exclusive of weapons and radios."

website: http://www.alanhamby.com/history.html

[Daedalu]

In reading some of the files that where released in the late 70,s that where writen by german officers that where brought here after the war to help in the debreifing of the german war machine. More than one General stated that if they could have got control from Hitler on the production of tanks that they would have done just what you stated. They had come to the conclusion that if they had built Panthers instead of the Tigers they would have been able to force the break outs that they needed. And that some of the more critical battles that they fought and lost or had to retreat to reform would have went the other way. And this thought was agreed to by the Americans that where working with them.
They also stated that if they had put more production into the UBoat sooner and other war machines that they could have held the mainland of Europe for many more years than they where able.

I think these files are on the web now and can be read by all. I do not know where they are stored but I think that with a little searching you could find them and get most of the answers that you are looking for.
I read them at a university where I was studying many years ago.
Finding them by accident one day while searching for a method of making a type of steel I set and red them for two weeks and I did not even touch the amount that was there.
If you would like help finding these let me know and I will be glad to help in the search as I would know when I found them. But you may know what I am speaking of, or others here. I can not remember what the study was named but it was done mostly by the U.S Army and the British Army together so they could prepare for a conflict with the USSR , as even then the thought was that the West would end up in war with the USSR.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Orzel Bialy

Interesting topic...can't wait to see some of the replies.

OK, here's something to start with. [:)]

According to what I see via the source quoted below the Germans would have managed only a 2 for 1 ratio in building a Panther instead of a Tiger and maybe a 3 for 1 ratio for the Pzkfw IV models.

They would have had more tanks to work with by killing off the Tiger... but even then those increased production numbers would have still left them far behind the production capabilities of the the US and USSR.

"Production was ordered to start in August 1942. It began at a rate of 25 tanks per month and peaked in April 1944 at a rate of 104 per month. It took 300,000 man hours to build one Tiger, almost twice as much time as a Panther required.

The average cost of a Tiger was 250,000 Reichsmarks. In comparison, a PzKpfw III cost RM 96,200, a PzKpfw IV RM 103,500, and a PzKpfw V Panther RM 117,000; all these figures are exclusive of weapons and radios."

website: http://www.alanhamby.com/history.html

Fantastic!!!!!!!!!..

[h_h_lightcap]

A word of caution about "what if's"....Nothing happens in a vacuum. If the Germans had produced more panthers or more U-boat surely the allies would have shifted their tactics and production as well.
I think no matter what the Germans would have done, short of atomic weapons and Jets in 1940, they would have been overwhelmed by the USSR and USA's amazing industrial capabilities.
That said, it is still a topic worth exploring and I wish you the best of luck!!

[FlashfyreSP]

Another aspect to consider is that the German industry continued to operate in a modified form of the "cottage industry" style, where numerous small firms build and produce subassemblies for the final product. All of these must be brought together at one place in order to build the final product. Any disruption of the "supply chain" would cause delays in finishing the product. Rather than have most, if not all, of the manufacturing for a Tiger in one location, the German industry spread out the production amongst the various manufacturing agencies. Of course, even the US did this to some extent, with engines and weapons built by other firms, but the German industry suffered from one other manufacturing problem: the desire to "hand-craft" many of the final assemblies. Rather than design equipment that could be turned out rapidly on an assembly line, with looser tolerances and less-than-perfect finishes, they chose to continue the precision crafting of parts by hand.

So even if they had dropped the Tiger in favor of the Panther or Pz IV, the industry system itself could not compete with the system the US and the British were using. If it could have, by redesiging the tanks and weapons for mass-production, the quantities produced in 1942-1943 might have been great enough to counter the losses incurred in various theaters.

[Riun T]

Another branch you could look into and I'll be danged if I remember where I read it but a huge problem for all the german tanks was that when 5th air decided to target the fuel,lubricants,and synthetic production fascileties which hit the tank production in their needing the flameretardent RUBBER insulating for their electircal systems and won't quote but "had to change to a creasole and paper wraping that the field mice in the various nations countrysides wouldnest and eat as the climate changed rendering a yesterday's functional tank worthless without combat" also as the temperature of the summer months of the eastern front got to 40C and the long running temps would melt and crack the insulation making the tank unable to even ford small streams"  JUST CAN"T REMEMBER WHERE I HEARD but it makes some truth??? help me out here guys!!RT

[wgs_explorer]

One resource you might want to look at is the US Strategic Bombing Survey (Europe). This comes in a summary report as well as a lot of sub-reports, most of which are located at the National Archives. There is also a summary report for the Pacific Theater.
 
Hope this is of use.

[Dragoon 45]

Thank you to everyone for your replies. I used the Tiger as the main example for what I am trying to do, because it is probably the best known. There are many other examples I could have used. I am not so much trying to do a "what if" type thing so much as show where the Germans went wrong. Barring a lack of will on the part of one of the Allies I believe the Germans would have lost due to a lack of manpower. Most of the battles they lost on the Eastern Front were more from a lack of manpower than a lack of equipment in my estimation. I tend to agree with Karell's thesis that a lack of "one more battalion" led to the Soviet Victory and also to the Allied Victory in the West. When you are trying to hold a mile front with 200 men and little or no reserve it is almost impossible to do unless you have a decisive edge in weaponary, which the Germans didn't have.

Flash brought up a good point on German Production Methods, yet Speer had pretty much changed those by mid-44, but that was to late to help. Also another little well know fact was that the Germans cut back tank production after the fall of France and didn't increase production till late 41 when they realized they wouldn't knock the Russians out of the war by the end of 41.

The Germans as a whole tended to fly off on wild tangents in weapons developments and wasted huge amounts of resources on projects that were doomed to failure or couldn't be brought to fruitition in time to matter.

[264rifle]

A book on this subject "Sledgehammers" by Christopher W. Wilbreck, a serving officer in the 1st Armoured division is sub-title "Strengths and flaws of Tiger tank battalions in WWII". I have just started reading this book and it might be a good source for you.

Just under $13.00 from Amazon .com

It sounds like and interesting project Dragoon. good luck with it.

[Dragoon 45]

I have Sledgehammers. It is a good book, but I never could figure out what Wilbeck's final conclusion was. He goes around it and never quite states wether the Heavy Tank Battalions were a tactical asset or liability. A better source on the Tigers, is the two books by Wolfgang Schneider, "Tigers in Combat I & II". These two books contain unit war diaries and overall they are not pretty to read. Too many instances of a battalion only able to field one or two tanks at any given time, even though they had 30 or more on hand.

ORIGINAL: 264rifle

A book on this subject "Sledgehammers" by Christopher W. Wilbreck, a serving officer in the 1st Armoured division is sub-title "Strengths and flaws of Tiger tank battalions in WWII". I have just started reading this book and it might be a good source for you.

Just under $13.00 from Amazon .com

It sounds like and interesting project Dragoon. good luck with it.

[264rifle]

Another book might be "The rise and fall of the Liftwaffe". As I remember it had some stuff in it about the political infighting and resource allocation problems that the Luftwaffe had. MIght give a back ground perspective.

Also check out the Naval situation, big ships vrs subs. Big ships did keep a large number of british ships tied up for large parts of the war (with thier crews) even if they didn't actually accomplish much else. Rating weapons is difficult sometimes. On another forum a poster claimed that blimps were useless and a waste because they never sank a U-boat. kill loss ratio of 0/0 in combat. War record claims that no convoy escorted by a blimp ever lost a ship. If the goal of the escort units was to get the merchant ships through how effective were the blimps????

On the cottage industry thing, was that going on from the begining of the war or was that part of the dispersal program to avoid bombing? Foot note: My grand father was employed by a four man company in a small town in Maine that built gyroscopes under subcontract to Sperry. Owner even had gas ration cuopons for his biplane to fly the parts out!!!!! Cottage industry????

[FlashfyreSP]

264rifle:
Cottage industry manufacturing system had been in place for a long time. Much of European manufacturing was slow in transitioning from this type of industry to the more modern "assembly line" type. Pride of workmanship was a big part; individual craftsmen were loathe to change to the more impersonal machine-fabrication systems.

[KG Erwin]

ORIGINAL: FlashfyreSP

264rifle:
Cottage industry manufacturing system had been in place for a long time. Much of European manufacturing was slow in transitioning from this type of industry to the more modern "assembly line" type. Pride of workmanship was a big part; individual craftsmen were loathe to change to the more impersonal machine-fabrication systems.

That is especially true of the German armaments industry. Some of these guys, like for example Ferdinand Porsche, took that craftmanship mind-set and produced some great-looking war machines, but beautiful weapons wasn't what was needed.

The designers kept tweaking, which is why you had this bewildering series of vehicle modifications that hamstrung the production effort.

By the time Albert Speer was brought in to simplify matters and concentrate on mass production, it was already too late.

As an extreme example, let's look at Werner von Braun. He was looking towards the stars, rather than using his expertise to produce weapons of destruction. So much irony, and tragedy.

[mlees]

I wish to derail the thread. Slightly.

In regards to the question "Would the man hours spent on developing and building the Tiger I been better spent on the Panther or PzKw IV?", I was wondering...

If it cost the Germans four or five mark IV's to make a Tiger, did it cost the Allies four or fives times as much effort to knock one out?

I think that an analysis that includes the effect on the allies also needs to be included, not just an analysis of manhours and kilograms of steel used.

[Dragoon 45]

On the Russian Front, the Russians just went around the Tiger Battalions. In the West, Allied airpower pretty much negated them, also as far as I know the Allied tankers did not have any more trouble knocking out a Tiger as they did a Panther. That is not to say it was easy to knock one out, just that the effort expended to knock either one out was about the same. All that being said, American Tank Destroyers had little fear of German Tanks.

ORIGINAL: mlees

I wish to derail the thread. Slightly.

In regards to the question "Would the man hours spent on developing and building the Tiger I been better spent on the Panther or PzKw IV?", I was wondering...

If it cost the Germans four or five mark IV's to make a Tiger, did it cost the Allies four or fives times as much effort to knock one out?

I think that an analysis that includes the effect on the allies also needs to be included, not just an analysis of manhours and kilograms of steel used.

[SireChaos]

ORIGINAL: mlees

I wish to derail the thread. Slightly.

In regards to the question "Would the man hours spent on developing and building the Tiger I been better spent on the Panther or PzKw IV?", I was wondering...

If it cost the Germans four or five mark IV's to make a Tiger, did it cost the Allies four or fives times as much effort to knock one out?

I think that an analysis that includes the effect on the allies also needs to be included, not just an analysis of manhours and kilograms of steel used.

It would seem that, according to the data provided in this thread so far, Tigers would still be uneconomical.

Let´s say the Germans faced the following choice:

1.) Build a bataillon of, say, 40 Tiger I´s, of which, to be charitable, between 2 and 5 will be operational and able to engage the enemy at any one time.
2.) With the same resource, build a regiment of, say, 120 Pz IV, of which, as a wild guess, somewhere between 40 and 120 (? - what *is* the breakdown rate of Pz IV´s?) will be operational and able to engage the enemy at any one time.

Which decision, do you think, will require the Allies to expend more resources to neutralize the resulting German force?

[264rifle]

Mlees, you bring up an interesting point.

If a countries investment in a particular weapon (or weapons system) provokes a disproportionate investment by their enemy in responce, is that weapon cost effective even though it might be much more expensive than an "ordinary" weapon of that type??

Does the psychological factor enter into it?? If that weapons system affects the enemy morale to a greater degree than greater numbers of an "ordinary" weapon does that get factored into the cost/effectivness ratio????

Some weapons, like the Gustav 80cm cannon, were a total waste of money and time. They could be countered by a well timed strike by a bomber unit which already existed. Some weapons, like the V-1, not only could be countered by existing weapons, requiring little or no research and development, but angered the target peaple so that most just fought harder.

On another part of the "what if" question: If the Germans were running short of critical alloys for good armour at the end of the war, Would have speeding up production earlier just have caused them to run out sooner???? Same with fuel, granted a Tiger used up a lot of fuel but did it use up 3-5 times as much as a MK IV or twice as much as a Panther????

Having said that, it is my own believe (and no I really can't quote facts[;)]) that the KING Tiger was pretty much a waste and even the Panther was a little too ambitious (see what 20/20 hindsight can do[:D])

[azraelck]

Read the AARs in the back of "Tigers in the Mud"; the war memoirs of
tiger tank commander Otto Carius. A few things can be noted from these accounts.

1: The Tigers were extremely unreliable. Losses often included twice as many tanks down due to mechanical failures as those lost in combat. They had more screwups and breakdowns than the Robonic Stooges. This was also noted in a article I read, which was based upon Soviet testing of captured Tigers.

2: The Tigers were tough to knock out. The most lost in a single opration was 3 (of those in the book). One was mentioned that recieved over 100 AT gun hits, on all sides, as it attempted to break through back to their support area. Both it and another tank involved were rendered incapable of further combat, but their crews returned safely. There was a few weak points in early Tigers; such as the commander's cupola. It sucked.

3: The Tigers' 88mm main gun could knock out anything with ease. Often, the total Tiger kills were far greater than losses, especially when those lost due to mechanical failures were discounted.



These are the conclusions I came to about the tank. Given the cost, unreliability, and the effectiveness of the Panzerkampfwagen V "Panther"; I'm of the opinion that upgunning the Panthers to the 88mm, and producing more of them, would have been better for Germany. The Panzer V's shortcomings had been addressed, and was quite difficult to knock out as well; while being far more reliable than the Panzer VI.

[264rifle]

Dragoon, I am not sure which US tank destryers you are refering too. Part of the problem with this type of comparison is the time line. Tigers started to show up in late 1942 (OK, no real numbers till mid 43 [;)]) While the M-36 might have had little trouble with them that was not until late 1944. M-10s without APCR (same gun performance as Sherman 76) might have had a bit more trouble.
 
While air units were able to counter the German tigers, would having more Mk IVs instead have made the air units less effective????