"The genius of Oddball" Topic

"Well, yeah, man, you see, like, all the tanks we come up against are bigger and better than ours, so all we can hope to do is, like, scare 'em away, y'know. This gun is an ordinary 76mm but we add this piece of pipe onto it, and the Krauts think, like, maybe it's a 90mm. We got our own ammunition, it's filled with paint. When we fire it, it makes… pretty pictures. Scares the hell outta people! We have a loudspeaker here, and when we go into battle we play music, very loud. It kind of… calms us down."

so far so good, but in many discussions here I've read that non-penetrating hits can 'mission kill' a tank by breaking sensors and optics and cracking vision blocks.

Putting the two things together…..

Would it be possible to disable a tank by firing paint shells at it? Presumably if the vision blocks and sights are covered up with paint it's not going to be able to shoot back and the only option is to open up hatches. At which point the tank commander is up on top of the battlefield's most visible target (I'd favour day-glo pink paint), and would likely consider retreat the better part of valour. I'd imagine that the tank would have to withdraw to be cleaned up with white spirit or petrol.

Of course I have no idea if a paint shell would actually work in reality, perhaps several hundred litres of emulsion poured off a tall building during street fighting might be an alternative?

Vision blocks can be replaced from inside by the crew, they carry spares

Cheers Scotty, I never knew that. But how about the gunsights?

I'd exoect them too but at the very least you can pull them insidevand clean them.
Smoke is more useful than paint I think

WP was fired to blind gunners and drivers. It would ruin the targets' paint job…

I would think that a "paint round" would be relatively unknown. So a good hit would block the vision and then it might take a little time for the crew to figure out exactly what was wrong. Then it would take a little more time to replace the vision lens or gun sight…assuming the latter can be replaced. So it probably could be useful, if only to get you out of a tight jam.

BTW, don't discount the 76mm with HVAP. They can put a round through 5" of flat armor. They were only Tiger Is and they were at close range!

As I recall, it worked with mud and helmets in the "Imitation General":

imdb.com/title/tt0051767

According to the author of Deathtraps,when the 76s started coming in,the Germans quickly learned their lethality,and concentrated fire on them first to knock them out,so the crews camouflaged them by painting a white ring around the barrel at 75mm length,and a wavy pattern on the underside of the extra length. This gave them the precious extra seconds to get off their shot.

I think the Homeguard 'anti-tank manual' detailed blinding enemy tanks with oil and paint etc if Molotov cocktails weren't available………I rememberan illustration of a stirrup pump and a bucket of 'something' to spray at the tank………….or maybe it was an episode of Dads Army!

BTW, don't discount the 76mm with HVAP. They can put a round through 5" of flat armor. They were only Tiger Is and they were at close range!

Now that's saying "something righteous and hopeful" !

As an old tanker, if I was firing at the other guy, I want to shoot something that would make him go away, not him and his 1GT off.

On the technical side, the 105mm WP round could not be stored in the horizontal ammo racks. The WP was a thick liquid and would settle inside the shell, throwing off the balance. When fired, it corkscrewed all over the sky. It was funny to watch the shell, but it never hit where it was aimed. Liquid paint would probably be worse.

LOL !

I think the manflu has been doing strange things to my brain :-)

Yep agree of course Cold Steel, but if you're in a Stuart shooting at a King-Tiger……

Something to keep in mind for those tempted to reference Belton Cooper's Death Traps:

link

link

Hafen;

While I have seen Fireflies using the white (some sources say light grey) ring and wavy pattern to help them not stand out from the ordinary Sherman I haven't seen that used on US 76 Shermans to any degree. Do you have a reference (other than Cooper) or better yet some pictures?

Tachikoma--ah,the catered landscape of old flame wars! OK,caveats accepted. As several of the Amazon posters pointed out,memoirists are prone to falling into error when they succumb to the temptation of talking about things they didn't actually see--and even when they did! That said,given Cooper's job, and close contact with tanks and tankers,I'd think that the anecdote I referred to above was based on direct experience. I'm certainly open to correction.
And sorry,Marc, not a WWII expert,much less tanks. Someone else will have to chime in.
A shame that more vets didn't write up their experiences at the time--but who could blame them?

Well, thats the great, never wrong steve zeloga. Seems if steve did'nt see it, its not true.
I've met him. He's very full of himself, even when proven wrong, as a friend of mine once did.

Just from a practical point of view, after looking at some cut-away drawings of 76mm shells, I don't think they could hold enough paint to have much hope of covering the vision slits or periscopes of the target unless you fired a lot of them.

Were you firing paint shells at any tank you would have to hit multiple places. On a Sherman for example the tank commander also had a sight. I imagine that a tank commander in a Panther or Tiger could call out an azimuth and range to a target to his gunner. Also why "blind" an enemy when you can kill him?

And of course Oddball's "paint" shells never existed. Why on Earth would you sit around and remove the HE from a shell only to replace it with a non-lethal substance? Now WP was used against tanks (BTW I don't have my references with me but I don't think that there was a WP round for the 76mm) by the 75 and 105. If done correctly a hit could result in;

A) a loud clang inside the tank
and
B) smoke being drawn in through the ventilation system

which sometimes led to the German crew believing that their tank was on fire and again sometimes led to their abandoning said vehicle. But that was still done with the intention of destroying the enemy.

Those reviews(and s.zeloga's bs) are written by people who WISH they were "THERE", but wer'nt.(why someone would want to see war up close..??i've been there. its no fun at all).
Just like the people who will go on and on about how the rebel army at gettysburg wore nicely tailored grey uniforms,when the people who were there at the battle, wrote differently.

Revisionists. God love them…

'The first, the Amazon review, the fellow asks "if the German tanks were as deadly as Cooper claims, why did the Germans lose 1,500 tanks in Normandy against about 1,700 Allied tanks?" It seems such a simplistic argument to me.'

Obvious questions:

What did the Germans use to destroy the Allied tanks?
What did the Allies use to destroy the German tanks?

So yes, agree it's a very simplistic argument.

Belton Cooper has been roundly criticized and justly so. That criticism started soon after release of his book. Many have pointed out the factual errors. And it begs the question why no supporting books on his central thesis. He has no footnotes, no sources, no support, just his statements. As one reviewer said we need to honor his service but anything past his memoir comments really don't stand up to scrutiny.

Anytime the Sherman is brought up someone is sure to cite Belton Cooper and then?

:)

I would thing is a bigger risk to the guy inside than it is to the guy outside. MG would allow it but at 2mm on board range and not at a man grouded, and being at risk from incoming it looks less than sensible in most cases. Idiot at less than 20 ft of a stationary tank, with molotof cocktail and no enemy MG's or sub macine guns around maybe it could be worth the risk.

I love the "Kelly's Heroes" movie. But remember not only was it a movie … but a comedy … However, that being said, it was a bit more realistic/accurate in some ways then other war movies of that period and before, IMO. I was so pleased to see Tiger I Vis-Mods on T-34 hulls. Than a US M-47 or M-48 with an painted on it !

I remember reading a British written book detailing all the tanks they had knocked out and how they were knocked out.
Very few were actually lost in tank on tank encounters.
Most were to mines and or AT weapons of some sort.

Why on Earth would you sit around and remove the HE from a shell only to replace it with a non-lethal substance?

Then why did Canadian Tanks use so many MS (Maple Syrup) shells?

Be careful with Steve Zagola, he comes at most subjects with a very revisionist point of few than fits in select facts/battle to justify his view. Cooper must also be read with caution (like many vets he's not a rivet counter) but he was there worked on knocked out M4s talked to rear tankers etc. Zagola wasn't and since Cooper refutes some of Zagola's revisionism he goes after him rather than try and learn something from Cooper.

Disguising gun barrell length as Cooper correctly points out was very common esp. among Brit Firefly crews.

RE tanks losses in Normandy a very good recent study finds the Germans knocked out about 2X allied tanks per loss in tank to tank encounters also AT v. tank – hard to seperate the two (but leaving out blown up by the Germans themselves while retreating). Not the 5X ratio of Paul Carrel type histories but no cause for accepting the triumphilism of Zagola.

Tomt

Then why did Canadian Tanks use so many MS (Maple Syrup) shells?

Everybody likes maple syrup ! Completely OT … IIRC, reading about UK M4 in Italy was driving thru an abandoned Molasses Factory. The floor couldn't handle the weight. And the M4 crashed thru the floor into the full storage vats in the basement. DOH ! No one was really hurt. I just don't know how easy a recovery of a syrupy M4 in the basement would be.

"I just don't know how easy a recovery of a syrupy M4 in the basement would be."
Turns out they didn't have any trouble pulling it out of the basement but couldn't find enough pancakes to sop up all the molasses so they ended up totaling it.

I didn't know that Murihill ?!

Thomas Thomas. You are correct that some Fireflies did use the disruptive paint scheme for the barrel. However could you provide pictures or other sources other than Cooper to validate the regular use on US 76mm tanks?

Also could you please provide a source to validate Cooper's statements?

You mention Zaloga fits in certain facts to justify his views. Can you provide examples of this where Zaloga is incorrect, along with supporting data?

Why is it so many accept Cooper's statements without any back up by Cooper but merely his statement yet choose to label anyone who doesnt follow lock step with those statements as revisionist? And since revisionist history can be equally positive as well as negative perhaps you are meaning to compliment Mr Zaloga?

I just find it amazing that again and again folks accept Cooper's statements on face value yet seem to jump on anyone, despite supporting data, which refute many of those statements.

Zaloga writes as a historian. He looks for facts, and he writes what he concludes from the facts he is able to find. He does not start with a personal agenda, he starts with documents and data. If he does not have verifiable information on a topic, he does not express a conclusion.

I've met Zaloga. I've listened to Zaloga talk on many topics. I've spoken with Zaloga. I've seen the kind of research he does. I've read his writings for more than 30 years.

Revisionist? If going to source material to find out how "common knowledge" has wandered off from fact is revisionism, than most good historians are revisionists.

The first thing I read by Zaloga was an article in the old "AFV News" newsletter from about 1973 or 4, describing how the KV-85 was NOT some major innovation in Soviet heavy tank design, but rather a lash-up to use 1 month's production of IS tank turrets before the IS tank hull was finished and in production. This was revisionism? If you say so… but I call it good historical research!

Preferring Cooper to Zaloga fits in well with the current US model of public dialog (among political candidates and in so many cases the media). We disparage any search for facts in favor of repeating the hearsay we can find to support our pre-conceived notions. That is not a good way to build policy, nor is it a good way to understand history.

Cooper wrote hearsay. A disgruntled junior officer with a sucky job writes every rumor or gripe he ever heard around a poker game, and now you look at it as the revealed truth? His book is so full of factual errors as to be farcical, until you realize that under-educated readers actually look to him like he knew what he was talking about.

He writes about tank development like he knows something, but he was not involved in any part of tank development.

He writes about the role General Officers played in tank development like he knows what he is talking about, but its all stuff that was just made up out of thin air.

He writes about combat results like he knows what he is talking about. If he was a combat vet, that might provide at least a valid information point. But he was not in a combat role, he was a REMF, with a sucky job.

He writes about German views vs. American stuff, like he knows what he is talking about. But he had no access to German documents or German PoWs, nor did he interview any German vets post-war before writing his book. So it is all just what he imagined.

He writes about American tanks like he knows what he is talking about. Here maybe he SHOULD know, since recovering and fixing tanks was actually part of his job. But what he writes is non-sense. It is so rife with factual errors as to be comedic.

Here is a passage from Cooper's book. In one paragraph he is wrong about:
1) The ground pressure of Pershing
2) The ground pressure of Sherman
3) The type of road-wheels used on a Christie suspension
4) Whether a Christie suspension used wide tracks
5) The type of springs used on a Christie suspension
6) The type of springs used on a Sherman's suspension
7) Which nations adopted Christie suspension suspension
8) Whether the Pershing had a Christie suspension
9) Whether the Panther had a Christie suspension
10) Whether other post-war US tanks had Christie suspensions

Now you can call me a rivet counter for caring if a guy who positions himself as an expert actually knows what he is talking about, but hey I am actually offended by people like Cooper, who set themselves up as experts on subjects that they know nothing about! Ignorance is one thing. None of us know everything. There are lots of things in this world I don't know. But when I don't know stuff, I don't just make sh!t up and spout it off like I am the expert.

If he was just recounting his wartime experiences I would hold him up as another interesting author. But I have a lot of trouble accepting conclusions from "experts" who have no regard for getting their facts right.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

And he cannot even spell it correctly: Christie, not Christy.