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It wasn't so much about "to get annihilated", the effect of Allied air superiority was different. Marches at night were reasonably safe and standard procedure, but slower. Bridges were blown up, that slowed down road and rail traffic a lot (due to "interdiction" missions by modern vocabulary). The railroad network was mostly smashed in northern France, which meant that the non-motorized infantry and para divisions were very slow on the march. Destroyed railroad crossing, railroad bridges, railroad stations, many small damages to the railroad lines due to sabotage and individual bombs and a huge loss of locomotives to mine and air attacks took away much of the classic infantry division mobility as enjoyed in about 1860-1943. The armored divisions were able to move at night and - if well-prepared and -organized) at nearly the same speed as they could have at daylight. The "annihilation" problem was acute for actual employment of armor - the preferred doctrine called for a great concentration in one place for decisive effect, but neither the terrain with its short lines of sight and concealment/cover for infantry nor allied tactical air power allowed such a use of armor. |
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I wouldnt disagree with any of that but night operations during WW2 were extremely limited and in reality they could only use the cover of darkness for redeployment any real counter offensive was going to force them to bring the armour out during the day at which point the allied air forces would have reduced them to a pile of perforated metal.
Hence the argument that I believe Rommels fight them at the shoreline was the only option they had to defeat the Western allies in Europe, once they were established ashore the war was over for Germany. Quote:
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I disagree the Tiger I was an excellent heavy tank but was of the older "box" type, it had its faults but what tank didn't however when you talk to most people of German WW2 tanks I will bet that a sizable number will think of the Tiger I. As far as picking it as best heavy tank of WW2 goes I don't think it an unreasonable choice given the fear it generated among allied soldiers to the point that there are many reports of PzIVs and Panthers being reported by soldiers as Tigers due to this fear. On the other hand the Tiger II was not a good tank despite a large number of excellent features, it was rushed into production without much thought to the operational conditions it was going to have to operate under and without any real development and troubleshooting, on top of this it was not as good as the IS2. It is my opinion that Panther II probably would have been a better tank. |
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plus if i may add some interesting reading (an example how russians can cancel advantages of great tanks ![]() http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tannenberg_Line i read this article few monthes ago and i remember something about lots of KOed IS2 cause the russians used them in close assault without infantry support which canceled their armour advantage. edit: sherman,as monty stated the tiger1 wasn't breaking as often as tiger2, wasn't as fuel hungry , plus if we look at the date of it's 1st combat use under leningrad you could see that no other nation had a decend rival to the tiger 1, it was totally superior to any allied tank for nearly 1.5 years. tiger 2 on the other hand saw combat almost in the same time with IS2. and they were almost equal. and i must agree on the fear impact of tiger1 it was the stuka of the wermacht ![]() |
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No doubt the Tiger I was a fearsome weapon. But Ican never shake of the feeling that had the Germans consentrated their efforts on building more medium tanks(specfically the Panther), they would be in better shape. anyone has penetration figures for the 88mm vs the 76.2 and the 17 pounder?
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not the best penetration table for the T-34 m1941-m1943 but:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-34_tank_gun (it had a chance against tiger only when using its sabot rounds at ranges below 500m) didn't bother to look for the 88mm table cause i'm 100% positive the 88mm L56 gun took out T-34 at 1500 meter ranges. the germans mounted 88mm L71 gun on their kingtigers/elephants/jagdpanther, this gun could take out T-34 on any range. the 88mm L56 has very similar characteristics to the 75mm L70 gun of the panther (at small-medium range the panther's gun is a bit superior while at big ranges the 88mm of the tiger1 outperforms the 75mm, i think due to the caliber). i took less interest in the western front but as far as i remember sherman firefly (equipped with the 17 pounder) could penetrate tiger's1 frontal armor at 500m and panther's front at 250m. |
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