He 177?

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Originally posted by Lokioftheaesir:


Ricky

Did'nt the germans have a small bore antitank gun that 'squashed'(choked) the exterior of the round down to a smaller bore to get the effect of a sabot round?
I ca'nt remember what it was called or it's sise.

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Well, they had 3 of them...
a 28 to 20 mm, one with 42mm to 28 mm and the best of all, the 75mm to 50 mm,
the big advatage was, the guns were lighter and more manouverable (well, why didnßt they build in tanks... a mark III with the 42-28mm gun would be a nasty surprise to the t34... if the t34 is killed at 1200 meters... )
the important disadvantage was the tungsten ammo and that the gun durability was very low (2000 m/s with these steel quality means maybe only 100 shots...) so a nice idea but not very practically...

[PMCN]

On tank round effectiveness...there is a couple of things.

As RickyB say velocity is important.

Kinetic Energy = 0.5 * mass * (velocity)**2 which means a higher velocity round has significantly more KE energy than a low velocity round (this means a higher chance of a kill as there is more damage inflicted if the round penetrates).

Momentum = mass * velocity which means that mass is critical to penetration since it is largly momentum which does penetration (although I think it is goes without saying a round with more KE will have a higher momentum). And for a given momentum transfer the smaller the area of impact the higher the force on the target and the greater thickness of armor it can penetrate. But on the other hand too narrow a round may shatter as the forces on the round are fairly significant.

There is also the question of air resistance and that comes in as the cross section of the round and the sqare of its velocity, so a high velocity large cross section round will loose energy very rapidly.

The whole issue is a lot more complicated than the above simplified version of course. The reason for going to larger diameter guns for modern MBT is due to the better velocity one can achieve. Also you can get that same velocity with a lower pressure in the breach since the area of the round is higher. A large diameter long gun gives you the highest velocity for a given pressure in the breach.

The soviets used a low velocty round in WW2 for their standard 76 mm gun, compare the difference between their standard 76 mm gun and the german version mounted on the Marder II. I suspect that was mainly because they considered the main role of the tank was infantry support and killing other tanks was a secondary task. It is true that standard soviet doctrine was (and may still be) to carry a large amount of HE and a rather small amount of AP. I think that the SU series of assult guns probably reversed this trend.

As far as the 28/20 mm ATG "squeeze bore" the germans had. That used a steel jacketed tungsten core. They developed it for airborne operations I believe. It was used in Crete and in north africa. It was highly effective from what I remember.

The germans also developed APCR rounds for their 50 mm guns. But these were used in limited numbers due to the shortages of the materials used in them.

[Ranger-75]

Adnan, lets stop arguing,

I know that initially Hausser "won" the battle at Prochrovaka, but I also know that he had to yield the field the next day as per Hitler's orders. I stand by the loss figures.

I also looked it up and the Elefants weren't even deployed to Manstein's AG South, they were in 2 Bns in Model's AG Center.

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Originally posted by Mike Santos:
Adnan, lets stop arguing,

I know that initially Hausser "won" the battle at Prochrovaka, but I also know that he had to yield the field the next day as per Hitler's orders. I stand by the loss figures.

I also looked it up and the Elefants weren't even deployed to Manstein's AG South, they were in 2 Bns in Model's AG Center.

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Well, lets stopp it.. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
But i think, this is the interesting part of such a board, you can excahange opinions... even if you disagree, you learn something <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[Mist]

Originally posted by Adnan Meshuggi:
[QB]
The soviet losses...hm... first, i didn´t mean that the ferdinands killed so much tanks at zitadelle... as i wrote, mostly they hit the soviets after the russian attacks at the south front...
second, at procherovka, the germans hadn´t 300 tanks to loose... the russian losses were higher (i read about est. 400) and the germans lost about 30 (but they could repair most of them...)

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<img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> Thirty!!
Dear Adnan, I dare to ask you about your primary source on that numbers. That's a shame for me, but I have very little primary information about epic battle at Prohorovka. Only some little mentions by Manstein, Melentin and Konev but no detailed info. I suppose that such grand victory of German arms over Russian hordes must be better documented. <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Originally posted by Mist:

<img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> Thirty!!
Dear Adnan, I dare to ask you about your primary source on that numbers. That's a shame for me, but I have very little primary information about epic battle at Prohorovka. Only some little mentions by Manstein, Melentin and Konev but no detailed info. I suppose that such grand victory of German arms over Russian hordes must be better documented. <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

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<img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">
Well, i speak from that battle of procherovka, everybody thinks of the biggest tank battle in history... the russians attacked with many (mostly light) tanks and were slaughtered by ome parts of the 1 SS Panzerregiment and mostly Infantry... my informations are from an cooperation about the dammended war ("verdammter Krieg") between german and russian historicans in the early 90ies... (1994), i also remember, that documentaions run simultanous in german and russian tv. But i also read the book from Guido Knorp (the german leader of historicans, he wrote also many books about Hitler and his helpers, kids, wimen... but this book, also called "Verdammter Krieg" was very interesting about the real losses of Kursk... also i read some other newer articles, forgot about the titels, who tells the same...

For manstein, i knew everything from him, he never mentioned some numbers <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Well, for konjev, i didn´t know his books, but would think that he wrote in the USSR and he was a high general there, so it wouldn´t be good, if he would tell (if my sources are true..) how bad his troops had performed...

[Mist]

Thanx Adnan. I'd be happy to find a book writen in cooperation by German and Russian historicans. Could you please give me its name? Such book could be published in Russia also.
As for Manstein and Melentin, they mention Prohorovka only as and edge point of German advance(after which victorious German troops started to fall back ) and don't say anything about the greatest tank battle. That's realy pitty.
About losses. I don't want to look arrogant, but I must say this. First. Both sides were preparing for Kursk battle during almost 3 months. Soviet side had built the greatest in history echeloned anti-tank defense which covered all area of the Kursk bulge. Second. After all preparations were made and all available forces were ready for battle, Soviet side was still stronger than attacking German side. Third. During WWII offensive operations, attacking side always(yes, always) suffers higher losses than defenders until
line defense becomes broken on operative depth and mobile forces recieve freedom of maneuver and strike defenders communications, reserves, HQs, stokes etc.
During Kursk battle, Germans did not break Soviet defense on North abd did not break Soviet defense on full depth on South. German panzer forces did not enter to operative space and were always forces to fight against entrenched and prepared foe which had entire front in reserve(Steppe Front). More than that, there was no operative
space inside of Kursk bulge at all for Germans.

Originally posted by Adnan Meshuggi:


<img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">
Well, i speak from that battle of procherovka, everybody thinks of the biggest tank battle in history... the russians attacked with many (mostly light) tanks and were slaughtered by ome parts of the 1 SS Panzerregiment and mostly Infantry... my informations are from an cooperation about the dammended war ("verdammter Krieg") between german and russian historicans in the early 90ies... (1994), i also remember, that documentaions run simultanous in german and russian tv. But i also read the book from Guido Knorp (the german leader of historicans, he wrote also many books about Hitler and his helpers, kids, wimen... but this book, also called "Verdammter Krieg" was very interesting about the real losses of Kursk... also i read some other newer articles, forgot about the titels, who tells the same...

For manstein, i knew everything from him, he never mentioned some numbers <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Well, for konjev, i didn´t know his books, but would think that he wrote in the USSR and he was a high general there, so it wouldn´t be good, if he would tell (if my sources are true..) how bad his troops had performed...

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Well. I generaly agree about memories of Soviet commanders. They were censored very much and many things were wiped out from them. But how many times did you read memories were commander is telling about how bad his troops(himself) were(was) performing? I guess not many times. You know, we in Russia had many books of German authors and other Western researchers being published. This is very good and it lets to learn how it was from the other side. Me, myself after reading them had strong feeling that WWII was continuous chain of German victories and Russian defeats. So, picture is disbalanced in case of taking into account only one side's sources. So, memories of Soviet commanders give very good opportunity to balance the picture. Certanly, I gasp when Zhukov says almost nothing about Kiev battle and says that Soviet troops simply left Kerch penisula in 1942. But I also can't be satisfied by German sources about almost won Kursk battle and by Guderian tales about innumerable bolshevik hordes.

[ August 24, 2001: Message edited by: Mist ]</p>

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Originally posted by Mist:
Thanx Adnan. I'd be happy to find a book writen in cooperation by German and Russian historicans. Could you please give me its name? Such book could be published in Russia also.
As for Manstein and Melentin, they mention Prohorovka only as and edge point of German advance(after which victorious German troops started to fall back ) and don't say anything about the greatest tank battle. That's realy pitty.
About losses. I don't want to look arrogant, but I must say this. First. Both sides were preparing for Kursk battle during almost 3 months. Soviet side had built the greatest in history echeloned anti-tank defense which covered all area of the Kursk bulge. Second. After all preparations were made and all available forces were ready for battle, Soviet side was still stronger than attacking German side. Third. During WWII offensive operations, attacking side always(yes, always) suffers higher losses than defenders until
line defense becomes broken on operative depth and mobile forces recieve freedom of maneuver and strike defenders communications, reserves, HQs, stokes etc.
During Kursk battle, Germans did not break Soviet defense on North abd did not break Soviet defense on full depth on South. German panzer forces did not enter to operative space and were always forces to fight against entrenched and prepared foe which had entire front in reserve(Steppe Front). More than that, there was no operative
space inside of Kursk bulge at all for Germans.



Well. I generaly agree about memories of Soviet commanders. They were censored very much and many things were wiped out from them. But how many times did you read memories were commander is telling about how bad his troops(himself) were(was) performing? I guess not many times. You know, we in Russia had many books of German authors and other Western researchers being published. This is very good and it lets to learn how it was from the other side. Me, myself after reading them had strong feeling that WWII was continuous chain of German victories and Russian defeats. So, picture is disbalanced in case of taking into account only one side's sources. So, memories of Soviet commanders give very good opportunity to balance the picture. Certanly, I gasp when Zhukov says almost nothing about Kiev battle and says that Soviet troops simply left Kerch penisula in 1942. But I also can't be satisfied by German sources about almost won Kursk battle and by Guderian tales about innumerable bolshevik hordes.

[ August 24, 2001: Message edited by: Mist ]

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Well, Mist, i don´t think you are arrogant, really not.
No, well, for me ww2 in russia is personal and nonpersonal... personal, because after war my grandma was raped by russian soldiers <img src="frown.gif" border="0"> but that is nothing i would blame any living russian... it happened.

The book i remember, was called in german "Der verdammte Krieg, Hitlers Krieg gegen die Sovietunion" or similar.... and depended on the tv documentation in german AND russian tv (first time that similar a german and russian tv station shows the same pictures (in german and russian)) based on material of new(1994) sources of russian cellars (missing word).. it said that the russians had huge losses (much more than every historican belived until that resources of the russian military bibliotary (spelling?) was researched and that manstein was true with his thinking about he situation at 12-13 July 43...

For the losses of attacking forces, well you are true, 100 %... that is what i said... i said that at procherovka, some german tanks and panzergrenadiere of the ss, digged in, was attacked by huge russian tank troops, wich suffered very very badly... and that the germans had est. 300 tanks operational at this moment (at the whole corps) and that they est. lose 30 of them (in this action)... i never said (or for that belived) that the german 2.ss.tank corps lost only 30 tanks at the kursk battle.... no, they lost much more, maybe less then we thought, but they lost a good number of tanks... but at procherovka, battle from 12. - 14. July, they lost 30 tanks, killing 300+ russian tanks. (Maybe 500 or more)
BUT:
1.) The russian tanks weren´t all t34 or kv1 or su152... most tanks were BT7, T60,T70.... cannon fodder
2.) A 10: 1 ratio sounds good, but it isn´t... don´t remember, it was the ss tank corps, at this moment the really best troop existing in the whole world, every tank crew dying was a huge loss for the thinned german tank forces..
3.) Russian losses were normally much higer in direct tank battles, that was normal in ww2... better soldiers, better coordination, better officers.... BUT this dosen´t worked AFTER the russians break through... then losses were mostly equal or at least 2:1

Hm, well Guderian was right with "uncountable" soviet "hordes", but that is relative... if you have an army and 100 own tanks, on 500 km frontline, and the russian hast 1000 tanks on 500 km, that is bad. If these 1000 tanks attack on 3 areas with each 333 tanks, then it is really really bad if you have only 5 or 10 tanks in that area.... then you have uncountable hordes... if you are a german inf. guy, sitting in a hole.. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

And, if you only countnumbers, the russians even lost the Baranov offenive in January 45... they allways lost huge numbers of tanks, planes and soldiers... but, well they won the war and the germans lost it.. so they did it right <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

[Ranger-75]

Adnan, do you have a piblished source with your 30 tank losses for the SS Panzer korps at Prochrovaka??. all of my sources and most are taken from official military records have the 1st SS PZ Korps at nearly 700 AFVs at the start of the day with little more than 350 operational remaining at the end of the day for about 300-250 lost in 1 day. Your statement of SS PZ corps having 300 tanks remainig is largely correct, That's what they had left, but it was was less than1/3 of what they started with on 4 July 43. Each of the 3 divisions had nearly 300 AFVs at the start.
Here is a listing of the German quarterly losses for 3Q 1943 (Jul-Sep 1943) where nearly all the action was in AG center and AG south in the Ostfront. Remember there was no fighting in Western Europe or Africa, The landings in Sicily didn't start until mid July (and there was not a large Panzer force ever in Italy and the remaining sectors of the east were relatively quiet.

PZ II 59
PZ 38T 6
PZ III 374
PZ IV 707
PZ V 247
PZ VI 138
other 71
STuG 489
STuH 29
STmPZ 17
Elefant 39
Marder 176
Nashorn 53
TOTAL 2370
Total for 2nd Qtr 43 1019

Most of these losses were at Kursk. The german panzer force was bled white in the summer of 1943

[rantakari]

Originally posted by Lokioftheaesir:


Ricky

Did'nt the germans have a small bore antitank gun that 'squashed'(choked) the exterior of the round down to a smaller bore to get the effect of a sabot round?
I ca'nt remember what it was called or it's sise.

---

IIRC there were three kinds of squeeze bore guns.
One was a 2.8 cm that squeezed the round to 20mm,
more like an antitank rifle. The others were bigger 40mm and 75mm i I think. Germans didn't have enought "wolfram" (what's that in english?)
to use them effectively...

[RickyB]

Originally posted by Lauri Rantakari:


IIRC there were three kinds of squeeze bore guns.
One was a 2.8 cm that squeezed the round to 20mm,
more like an antitank rifle. The others were bigger 40mm and 75mm i I think. Germans didn't have enought "wolfram" (what's that in english?)
to use them effectively...

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Thanks, Lauri. I am fairly sure, and others have stated the same, that the Germans used Tungsten, so I assume that is probably the meaning of wolfram. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[Svar]

Originally posted by RickyB:

Thanks, Lauri. I am fairly sure, and others have stated the same, that the Germans used Tungsten, so I assume that is probably the meaning of wolfram. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

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RickyB,

The symbol on the chemical element periodic chart for tungsten is W which stands for wolfram.

Svar

[RickyB]

Originally posted by Svar:
RickyB,

The symbol on the chemical element periodic chart for tungsten is W which stands for wolfram.

Svar

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Thanks, Svar. What is the periodic table
<img src="confused.gif" border="0"> ??? Oh yeah, I think I studied that back in my physics days (I can't believe I majored in that and didn't know wolfram). Now I really feel silly about not knowing. <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

[PMCN]

RickyB writes...
What is the periodic table??? Oh yeah, I think I studied that back in my physics days (I can't believe I majored in that and didn't know
wolfram). Now I really feel silly about not knowing.

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Another physcist great!! What branch? Not surprising you didn't know wolfram most n.a. are only taught the name tungsten (our chemistry teacher made sure we knew it as both but he was a tad crazy). Learning german I now know where some of the other symbols come from (other than the ones which come from latin).

As for what the period chart is; that is chemistry! It is the organisation of the elements in order of atomic number but with the whole structure composed so that you get useful information from where in the table you find a particular element. All the alkali metals are in column I for example while all the noble gases are in the last one. The value of it was in its predictive powers, not so important now as all the low mass elements are known but still it is probably usefull if they find elements in the predicted superheavy stable range.

[rantakari]

Originally posted by Paul McNeely:

As for what the period chart is; that is chemistry! It is the organisation of the elements in order of atomic number but with the whole structure composed so that you get useful information from where in the table you find a particular element. All the alkali metals are in column I for example while all the noble gases are in the last one. The value of it was in its predictive powers, not so important now as all the low mass elements are known but still it is probably usefull if they find elements in the predicted superheavy stable range.

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In Finland they teach it in 7th grade (that is for the 12-13 year olds, so my memory is quite fuzzy) compulsory chemistry course.
The columns were divided into main and sub groups, and I think the rows meant how many neutrons there were in the outer sphere of the of the atom (or something <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> )

[ August 28, 2001: Message edited by: Lauri Rantakari ]</p>

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Lauri Rantakari:


In Finland they teach it in 7th grade (that is for the 12-13 year olds, so my memory is quite fuzzy) compulsory chemistry course.
The columns were divided into main and sub groups, and I think the rows meant how many neutrons there were in the outer sphere of the of the atom (or something <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> )

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I think its broken down by the number of protons in the nucleus in one direction (across?) and the number of electron shells in the other direction (down?).

[RickyB]

Originally posted by Paul McNeely:
Another physcist great!! What branch? Not surprising you didn't know wolfram most n.a. are only taught the name tungsten (our chemistry teacher made sure we knew it as both but he was a tad crazy). Learning german I now know where some of the other symbols come from (other than the ones which come from latin).

As for what the period chart is; that is chemistry! It is the organisation of the elements in order of atomic number but with the whole structure composed so that you get useful information from where in the table you find a particular element. All the alkali metals are in column I for example while all the noble gases are in the last one. The value of it was in its predictive powers, not so important now as all the low mass elements are known but still it is probably usefull if they find elements in the predicted superheavy stable range.

---

I was an engineering physics major, so I took lots of physics and a number of engineering classes. I actually never did any work using my physics background. The US Marine Corps paid for my college and I spent some time there, until I messed up my shoulder. From there I worked my way into the computer field, so I don't qualify as a physicist <img src="frown.gif" border="0"> . What do you do in the field? I believe Mist is also in something closely related, if it is not physics itself. Interesting to hear all this.

I was kidding about the periodic table, although it wasn't taught in any of my schools until fairly late, unlike many of you. I don't remember too much of the specifics anymore, but I could still read one <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> . We also worked with the periodic table quite a bit in a nuclear physics class, although not as detailed as in chemistry.

[Barbos]

Sorry for late joining the discussion on Kursk battle. Leo Tolstoi wrote: "Can't keep silence." There were a few versions of what happened near Prokhorovka. The Soviet one, amazingly often quoted by western sources says that on 12 July "700 Soviet tanks clashed with 500 German AFV's and secured the field of battle having destroyed 400 enemy tanks and lost 300 Soviet tanks." Another one: on that day the Soviet 5th Guards tank army was nearly destroyed. German losses of the day were about 5 tanks, so the question is why did Germans stop the operation on brink of great victory. Manstein describes the battle with hardly legible iterations of phrases like "my troops ran into enemy reserves and smashed them." A lot of smog of war.

Lately Russian media published Rotmistrov's (the army cmdr) report to Zhukov. He directly mentioned that the order to front assault the German elite panzer korps immediately after march and without recon was a mistake, much better was to dug in and wait. He confessed that finally the field of battle remained under German control which let them to evacuate and repare damaged AFV's.
By the night 11 July Rotmistrov gathered 850 tanks (about 30% of Soviet tanks were light T-70 whose 45mm guns could just make noise), Hausser's SS Pz Korps had 211 tanks (15 Tigers) and 57 SP guns. The Rotmistrov's attack started in early morning, when SS Leibstandarte (Wittmann and foreign minister's son Ribbentropp were panzer commanders there) finished preparations to its own offensive, so the battle was not a meeting engagement, but a kind of turkey shooting: Germans used "long hands" of their AFV's and excellent positions to slaughter the 5th tank army moving on open field. Rotmistrov soon realized his fault, but could do nothing since most of Russian tanks were not equipped with radio. The situation for Russian tankers quickly grew desperate, this fact (not full samovars of vodka!) was the reason for the fire rams. SS motoinfantry AT-guns and Rudel's Ju-87g's also inflicted heavy losses on Russian armor. By the night the Germans ran out of AP ammo, but the 5th Guards was depleted so that it was withdrown for a few weeks. Russians lost about 550-600 tanks of 850, nearly 10:1 to Germans.
Nevertheless we shouldn't forget that the Prokhorovka clash was a huge, but spatially and timely local event, whereas the major part of the Kursk battle's first phase was the persistant (and successful!) Russian defense against repeated German attacks. The Panzertruppe suffered its major losses not in armor fighting, but in repeatedly attacking well dug-in and dense Soviet anti-tank defenses. So the Germans won the Prokhorovka episode, but lost the whole battle. They covered just 1/3 of the way, lost about 1200 AFV's and got exhausted. Mellenthin wrote about "terrible armor losses" and the offensive's failure on July 8 or 9. Clearly it happened not due to Allied landing in Sicily. The Leibstandarte was transferred to Italy and did nothing but resting and refitting until late fall when it was sent back to Russia.

It is interesting that in spring of 1943 Guderian and Manstein warned against the "Zitadel" and proposed to postpone large offensives for the next year and in 1943 only conduct restricted operations and collect&conserve armor reserves. Was it wiser in fact?

[PMCN]

RickyB writes...
I was an engineering physics major, so I took lots of physics and a number of engineering classes. I actually never did any work using my physics background. The US Marine Corps paid for my college and I spent some time there, until I messed up my shoulder. From there I worked my way into the computer field, so I don't qualify as a physicist. What do you do in the field? I believe Mist is also in something closely related, if it is not physics itself. Interesting to hear all this.

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Ah well I thought about doing something similier when I was finishing highschool but the Canadian Armed Forces told me I was too blind (I wear glasses) for them (the exact quote was "we would not want you to dig ditches...unless there is a war"...so I went to civillian university. I am a nuclear physicist by training but I work on ion sources and am currently developing a source for use on the first fusion reactor. Sorry to hear of the injury, I have a few friends with similier stories. It is interesting to see so many in one place given the average density of physicists is rather low (putting it mildly).

I remeber the engineering physics people in university (all 3 of them) they were significantly overworked...at one time I believe they were taking 9 courses a semester (nearly double a normal students and none of these were basket weaving or coffee sampling) so its an impressive achievement.

I was kidding about the periodic table,

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I wondered about it to begin with but everyone forgets things they don't use. The trick was coming up with a simple explaination for what one is. It was actually, in that sense, a good question because as you can see the answer is not so easy to formulate.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Paul McNeely:
whereas the major part of the Kursk battle's first phase was the persistant (and successful!) Russian defense against repeated German attacks. The Panzertruppe suffered its major losses not in armor fighting, but in repeatedly attacking well dug-in and dense Soviet anti-tank defenses. So the Germans won the Prokhorovka episode, but lost the whole battle.

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Yes, the Soviet's answer to the impending attack (they knew it was coming) was to turn the Kursk salient into a fortress. I read somewhere where almost all the German Tiger tanks involved in operation Citadel were lost to land mines, not direct fire from Soviet armor.