Tanks!

Started by bayonetbrant, February 18, 2013, 08:51:35 AM

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LongBlade

Quote from: besilarius on February 20, 2013, 10:06:56 AM
The thing that leaps out to me from this article is tha the author seems to assume that once a tank is knocked out, it is gone forever.
In North Afrika, the british were quite astonished at the efficiency of the small recovery force of the Afrika Korps.  One estimate (pre Alam Halfa) made the rather surprising assertion that fully two-thirds of all knocked out german tanks were recovered by the germans.  Of these, most could be refurbished, and the rest stripped for parts.  (At Alam Halfa, someone, possibly Monty but more likely his Chief of Staff, Freddie de Guingand, put out directions targeting the german recovery forces.)
During Normandy, there are a number of accounts that the british would put blankets or wood, soaked in petrol, inside german vehicles to keep them from being recovered.  The Tiger, with its immense hydraulic system, was thought to be vulnerable to this treatment.
As to Soviet tank recovery, this is something I've never read about.  One would expect they had some recovery services, so the huge numbers of destroyed tanks, may be unrealistic.

Good point. In Death Traps (http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=grogheads-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=0891418148) it was the author's job to collect destroyed Shermans, recover and refit them for action again.

This may explain the discrepancy between why Zaloga, for instance, thinks Shermans held up better than the guys who drove them. It's an accepted fact that it took four or five Shermans to take out a single German tank. But modern historical revisionists have tried to argue that the Sherman "wasn't that bad."

Problem is it *was* that bad - we just did a really good job of recovering and refitting the dead tanks so the absolute losses didn't look as bad as they really were.

Funny thing is, that Soviet analysis indicates a similar loss to kill ratio for the T-34. It would appear that no matter what that Allies used, it took four of them to kill a German tank. Chalk it up to doctrine, equipment, or elan (or all three) - no doubt about it, fighting the Germans was a tough slog.
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bob48

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GDS_Starfury

glad you like it.  the author does hit upon recovery.  maybe the Soviets were just really bad at it.
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Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

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Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


Martok

Dig the new avatar Starfury.  Just watched a few episodes the other day; hilarious stuff! 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

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"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

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GDS_Starfury

Malory: It's okay! They're just blanks.
Lana: Well, see, you say that ...
Malory: But they were blanks—weren't they?
Sterling: Only if the back of his skull picked that exact moment to explode outwards
Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


Martok

Hee!  Jerkass though he is, Sterling is definitely my favorite character. 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces

bayonetbrant

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bayonetbrant

name this one...  :)

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

mirth

^Type 10. Newest Japanese MBT I believe.
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"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

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GDS_Starfury

Japanese type 10

damn you Mirth!
Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


GDS_Starfury

Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


mirth

I thought that yellow symbol on the turret side looked like something for the Autobots.
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

GDS_Starfury

Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers