"Killing more tanks then they made..." Topic

I was doing some research recently and came across another page where a couple of guys were arguing about German tank kill claims (Colonel Dr. Bäke IIRC) being impossibly high.

Later, I cam across the info below from Finno-Soviet wars. It seems that it was entirely possible that the same tank could be killed more than once in the right circumstances.
Maybe the high kill rates are so impossible after all?

Before Finnish-Soviet Winter War Soviet Red Army issued T-28 tanks to separate Heavy Tank Brigades. During Winter War 20th Heavy Tank Brigade of Soviet Red Army operated T-28 tanks in Carelian Isthmus. The total number of
T-28 tanks in its use was 172 tanks. Due to nearby Kirov Factory number 100 and basic structural design that proved surprisingly tenacious, once Finnish troops knocked out these tanks, the Soviets were repeatedly able to return
them back to battle after swift repairs. Combat-related losses of T-28 tanks for this unit were no less than 285 tanks and technical losses 197 tanks, but from these 371 were repaired already during the war and only 32 tanks
were listed as non-restorable losses. During the war the Soviets learned the hard way that armour protection of T-28 was not able to protect it effectively from Finnish antitank-guns, so they added appliqué armour to large number of their existing T-28 tanks, the resulting version was known as T-28E (with letter "E" coming from ekranirovannij", reinforced). During Winter War the Soviets equipped 108 T-28 tanks with complete package of reinforced armour and 28 tanks were equipped with partially reinforced
armour.

Combat-related losses of Soviet 20th Heavy Tank Brigade in Winter War:

Lost how: How many:

artillery fire 155
landmines 77
fire 30
sunk in water 21
captured 2

total: 285

Huh -- dig it. That is a great bit of history.

From the bit I've read about the Western Front, during WWII, generally, it appears about 50% of tanks that were knocked out could be recovered, repaired, and then put back into service again.

In many battle accounts, multiple rounds would be fired at a tank, until it was either clearly knocked out, or it caught fire and brewed up.

Plenty of good vibes for the replacement crew(s)!

Well nothing like the smell of new paint,disinfectant and other smells that they can't place or want to. :( Robert

Yup, holding the battlefield is key to turning those knocked out tanks back into servicable tanks. One area where the US had a huge advantage over other nations was they planned for and had logistic units that did nothing else but recover tanks. Even a knocked out tank that isnt worth rebuilding has lots of spare parts that can be striped and used on other tanks.

Actually doug, that was supposed to be one of the British Army's strong suits in North Africa as well.

Sluice it out, patch the hole(s), fix what else is damaged, put a new crew in and away it goes.

"that was supposed to be one of the British Army's strong suits in North Africa as well."

I rather think it was DAK which had the advantage in that area due to the British habit of laagering back they rarely controlled the battlefield and left lots of perfectly recoverable wrecks behind.

The recovery rate was more like 75% than 50%, the majority of disabled tanks were just that – minor damage quickly repairable and in some cases even just abandoned when the engine stalled etc. Complete write offs were a minority, at least before the enemy demolition teams had wandered around the battlefield blowing up all the damaged enemy tanks.

So yes, it is perfectly feasible for a tank to be 'knocked out' several times, just as it is possible for a tank unit to get through many times its strength in vehicles – partly a functiom of repairs, but also of resrves and replacement.

An interesting feature at an operational level is that tank formations suffer vehicle losses at roughly 5 times the rate of personnel losses in infantry formations (a ratio which has stayed constant for at least 60 years) , but vehicle losses are recoverable much, much more quickly whereas infantry units die a death of a thousand cuts. On average, over the course of a few weeks etc.

Martin Rapier

'An interesting feature at an operational level is that tank formations suffer vehicle losses at roughly 5 times the rate of personnel losses in infantry formations'

Forgive my stupidity, but do you mean that, if an infantry formation loses 10% of its strength in an action, an armoured formation would be expected to lose 50% of it's strength in a similar engagement?

Ruddy heck.

So… Sven Hassel was right after all, eh?

(IIRC, a disparity between claimed kill numbers and nominal tank strength was one of the criticisms levelled at Denmark's Premier Historian.)

An interesting feature at an operational level is that tank formations suffer vehicle losses at roughly 5 times the rate of personnel losses in infantry formations

Forgive my stupidity, but do you mean that, if an infantry formation loses 10% of its strength in an action, an armoured formation would be expected to lose 50% of it's strength in a similar engagement?

That's what it sounds like he's saying!

The average T34, if recovered after combat was rebuilt an average of three times after being "knocked" out.

So if the Germans claim to have destroyed tens of thousands of tanks, they probably only accounted for about a third of them (half of them would be claimed by Rudel anyway ..)

The Germans learned early in Normandy just how fast American repair crews could get a "dead" Sherman back into action. They also learned a burnt out Sherman was unrepairable due to the hull warping, leading to the German AT tactic of continuing to shoot a dead tank until it burned.

50% of 'burned' Shermans were recovered and put back into service.

A good example of how 'total loss fixation' can skew your perceptions is Kursk
Instead on concentrating of the number of German write-offs look at how the total of in-service tanks falls of the cliff as the fighting develops.

"Forgive my stupidity, but do you mean that, if an infantry formation loses 10% of its strength in an action, an armoured formation would be expected to lose 50% of it's strength in a similar engagement?"

Yes. Although it is more in terms of daily casualty rates at divisional level over a number of days during a particular operation.

3% daily personel loss rate translates into a 15% AFV loss rate, roughly, on average etc etc The AFV:personnel loss ratio was marginally higher during the 1973 AiW (around 5.4 IIRC), partly due to the effect of Saggers in the early part of the conflict. So you run out of tanks in a week.

Recovery rates are vastly higher for AFVs though, so they bounce back much quicker, even in the absence of replacements. A few days maintenance and you are back at 50% operational again. Infantrymen take rather longer to put back together.

WW2 armoured divs were perfectly capable of completely destroying themselves without any enemy action at all of course, 50% loss rate during the unnopposed occupation of Austria etc.

Artillery loss rates OTOH are a tiny fraction of personnel loss rates (IIRC 10% or so, so a 3% personnel loss rate translates into 0.3% of arty tubes).

Bear in mind these are big numbers we are talking about, loss rates over formations comprising tens of thousand of men and hundreds of tanks, guns and aircraft. A loss rate of 2% in a Corps of 100,000 translates into an awful lot of dead infantrymen and an awful lot of very alive HQ/support/comms/logistics/maintenance type personnel. The high loss rate among AFVs is partly because they are all teeth and no tail, so the numbers are skewed against them. Not many tanks hauling supplies. Typically these ratios apply to divison sized formations.

I find operations research fascinating.

Interestingly loss/recovery rates at battalion level are modelled along these lines in the 1956 British Army Tactical Wargame too. In engagements of the same type, outcome and force ratios, armoured battalions will generally suffer heavier losses than infantry battalions, but they recover faster too. As the model is at a lower level, the ratio isn't 5:1 though, more like 2:1 and couched.

" look at how the total of in-service tanks falls "

Yes, a much better measure of combat power on any particular day.

"The Germans learned early in Normandy just how fast American repair crews could get a "dead" Sherman back into action. They also learned a burnt out Sherman was unrepairable due to the hull warping, leading to the German AT tactic of continuing to shoot a dead tank until it burned."

Thats got nothing to do with Normandy, American repair ability, or even a particularly German tactic. Everyone shot at tanks til they burned or blew up, otherwise how can you tell if it's dead?

And still do

Any enemy vehicle will often get a "kill check" just to be sure. Plus the more holes in it the less likely it is ever going to be repaired.

I often hear the claim that tanks were riddled (and yes I know you can easily find pics of well ventilated tanks) but the only surveys done show 1 or 2 hits was the norm.

I suppose that one enemy tank was sometimes claimed as a kill by more than one tank/gun crew, if they all shot at it. Say Tank A fires at Panzer A and the panzer's crew bails out. Tank A then has other problems and moves off. Tank B comes along, spots Panzer A, which isn't burning, and brews it up. Result: 2 kills on 1 panzer.

I often hear the claim that tanks were riddled (and yes I know you can easily find pics of well ventilated tanks) but the only surveys done show 1 or 2 hits was the norm.

Not correct. Back in the early 80s, the US Army Armor Center was having a raging debate over whether to put an escape hatch in the bottom of the M1 tank. Guess who was one of the lucky "volunteer" officers who got to go through all the WW2 Ordinance surveys building a database of tank kills in NW Europe? We started out looking at how many times an escape hatch was needed, but ended up compiling a complete statistical database of all kills, including those put back together. I found the vast majority of the Shermans written off as unrepairable were burnt out with more than 10 holes in them from AT weapons. My notes may still be in a box somewhere, but I can't find them or if the database was ever published.

I found the vast majority of the Shermans written off as unrepairable were burnt out with more than 10 holes in them from AT weapons

This report examined 40 penetrated tanks and 21 had 1 hole and 11 had 2 holes,32 tanks from 40.

PDF link

I have ORO-T-117 Allied Tank Casualties In WW2 and figure 13 shows that 107 Sherman casualties had 145 hits between them.
Average 1.35 per tank

Figure 14 covers 100 Pz III and Pz IV tanks with 128 hits. Average 1.28 per tank

Figure 30 covers 36 Panthers and Tigers with 98 hits. Average 2.7 per tank

Analysis Of German Tank Casualties In France 6 June to 31 August 1944, Report No. 17 found that the average of hits (not penetrations) per tank was:
Tiger 4.2
Panther 2.55
PzIV 1.2

I see a pattern in the above!

Martin, I had read that the REME was better at recovery in NA. Been a while, may have misremembered. Thought though that it was intended as an explanation of how the British could loose so many tanks in action but continue to outnumber the DAK. In addition, of course, to the major reinforcements.

ORS report 17 quoted in "Over the Battleground – Goodwood"

…"concluded that knocked out Panther tanks had on average succumbed to 2.55 hits (vs Shermans 1.63) and 63% of them burned (vs.Shermans 82%)

I think combining the information on number of tanks brewed up, this study actually confirms the concept of firing continually until the vehicle is visibly destroyed.

I would think similar information on brew-ups for the other study you mentioned would also lean towards this

Whatever way you cut it by far the majority of penetrated tanks had 1 or 2 holes.
You can find odd examples with 8 hits but how does that impact on the average?

This sort of reminds me of what reportedly happen during the Korean War, '50-'53 … The USAF reported destroying more AFVs then the North Koreans had … Understandable … I guess … unless the AFV is burning, it may be hard to tell from the air … or the ground …

This survey is the one that everyone uses to 'prove' the Sherman was highly flammable. It is the staple on fanbois sites. The problem I have it is but one of several done at the same time and the others concluded 80% of Tigers and Pz IV's also caught fire when penetrated. It also had data to show 65% (memory) of Panthers burned.
No one ever seems to use those tables. why is that?
I think the only sensible conclusion is that the majority of penetrated tanks caught fire.
I also know from other surveys that 50% of burned Shermans were repaired.
Sherman fires came in many sizes and not every fire was
large enough to render the hull unusable and it was no better or worse in this respect than most of its enemies.

I think revisionism is too strong a word here because as far as I know there has never been any serious research done on the subject of tank flammability.

"The Germans are going to whack at tanks until they are certain it is destroyed."

Not just the Germans:
"As luck would have it the Worcesters' 6-pounders were loaded with the sabot shell, and as the leading Tiger tank appeared slowly round a bend in the road the nearest gun opened fire when only one side of the hull and the turret were visible. The Shell hit and penetrated the mantlet of the 88mm gun. The six-pounder was reloaded and fired again, then reloaded and fired a third time, from point-blank range, hitting the tank in the hull both times. The surviving members of the crew baled out of the stricken tank in panic, only to be mown down by machine guns. The 6-pounder continued to fire, but with H.E. now. The Tiger exploded and burst into flames. The remaining Germans then broke and fled.
For his coolness in the action, Jack Guest, the sergeant in charge of the gun, was awarded the Military Medal. "

And here is that Tiger………

link

Good Show Old Boy !!!!

Some recent books on Kursk/Prokhorovka we have printed in Ruissia analyze kill claims, tanks that were repaired during the fight and actual tanks that were on "paying list" during the operation.
Looking at the figures it seems that Germans had better evac service, and were trying to recover even heavily damaged machines. To prevent Red Army to recover their own tanks they had kill teams that would be trying to destroy the damaged armor beyond repair.
Some interesting accounts on night skirmishes, when salvaging teams were working so close to each other, that sometimes two teams were trying to recover same tank…

All in all, some of the Tigers went out of action and back to front during the summer of 1943 several times before completely destroyed or relocated. a couple of dozens of Ferdinands were not written off, as they were evacuated to repair plant in Hungary, and returned back to front after several months after Kursk.

So may be some of the claims are not that wild…on the other hand, coming back to Ferdinands, the Germans showed less destroyed machines than were actually accounted left on the battlefield and examined by Russian salvaging teams after the batlle.