Kursk was falure, right. But Tiger at Kursk was not failure, failure was Panther, along with several heavy mistakes on German side. Germans had too few tanks for the battle, and Soviets knew exactly when and where Germans will attack (one German soldier said them). Total Tiger loss at Kursk was 22 tanks out of 140 total. (note: some Alan Bullock said that Germans had 2000 Tigers at Kursk-in fact, only 1355 Tigers were ever produced, +489 Tiger II's (68-75 t, max. armor 155 mm at front, 8.8 cm PaK 43/3 L/71, penetrates 159 mm at 2300 m; for comparation, Tiger I 8.8 cm KwK 36 L/56 was penetrating 135/60 mm (135 mm armor angled 60 degrees) at 1500 m). Out of 1355 Tiger I's, 582 was destroyed in combat, 556 destroyed by their own crews, and 217 lost out of unknown reasons. There is no data which would explain combat losses, but it seems that most of Tigers were destroyed by Anti-tank artillery and airplanes, not by enemy tanks. Tigers in Africa were destroyed by hidden British 6pdr cannons (57 mm), firing at sides of tank from minimum distance (few mwters, probably); tigers could easiliy survive 76 mm fire from russian T-34/76; on 21. July 1944. near village of Krivani 6 Tigers from 502. battallion destroyed 19 IS2 and 5 t-34/85 tanks; next day they discovered 28 IS2 on distance of 3 km; for !/2 of hour all Soviet tanks were destroyed; next day two of his Tigers , on reaconissance mission, destroyed 17 t-34/85 and 2 Su-122.

 

Germans lost Battle of Kursk beacouse of pure planning, Hitler's insisting on attacking Kursk and premature decision to produce heavily unreliable Panther instead of Panzer IV. Also, Panthers at Kursk were used "on idiotic way", according to lieutenant Decker, commander of brigade which had panthers under command. Panthers were sent to attack on small space, which wasn't cleaned of mines, and danger from Soviet 76.2 mm anti-tank guns wasn't neutralized. 40 Panthers was lost from mines alone. After 5 days, 31 Panther was completely lost, 131 neded immediate repairs (70 on tracks or wheels, 23 on engine); only 38 was operative.

Iowa class had good hull and strong machines; North Carolina and South Dakota were built for speed also, but there were limitations of weight; USN intentionally went for shirter, better protected hull.

 

They were often broken down because:

1) They had an underpowered/overworked engine;

2) A weak set of final drives, which broke often;

3) Were difficult to repair; and

4) A part of an army system that didn't emphasize maintenance in the field that much, meaning spares were difficult to procure.

 

The result was a tank that broke a lot, took a long to repair...resulting in a lot of "hangar queens."

 

It was an inefficient tank, BTW...had it SLOPED its armour it could have been lighter for a given weight and therefore more maintainable and operationally available...or for the same weight, and its concomitant maintenance issues, would have been MORE survivable....

 

The Tiger is OVER-RATED...it, like the HMS Hood, may be the SYMBOL of it's service, but like the Hood it was seriously flawed and that's what the professionals thought THEN and think NOW (Mind you, I'm not one of the "professionals" I merely read what they write.)

All I can tell you is what I have read...they broke, a lot, and required a LOT of maintenance, because they had overstressed drive components.  The Wehrmacht had a poor maintenance program...it focused on short campaigns with FACTORY rebuilds, well into 1943...field maintenance suffered.

 

The Tiger, regular or King are over-rated...in fact the Heavy Tank was a dead end...it's why the T-34 is revolutionary, it was, as the Soviets called it, a Universal Tank, or as we would style it today, a Main Battle Tank.  It might have taken another 20 years for it to die off, but the Heavy Tank was a dead end, the Tiger was just more dead than most.

Leech Wrote:

Kriegsmarine surface navy wasn't incompetent-it was outnumbered and outgunned 10:1 by Royal Navy alone, not to count US Navy-out of 15 battleships, 6 or 7 were on Atlantic, plus two fast battleships which later came.

 

Oh I think incompetent is about the right word for the Kriegsmarine. Outside of a handful of operations (Sheer's long cruise and Operation Cerberus), it's hard to find many instances where the surface fleet achieved the objectives set out for it without getting wasted in the process (The Norway operation for example succeeded, but cost the roughly a fourth of it's available ships). 

Probably the best and most aggressive sea Admiral KM had was Marschall. He was an "up and at em" type to be sure. HE would have finished off POW for sure. Look at his actions in sinking HMS Glorious. HE ordered an attack when the identity of the enemy ship was still unknown. When asked "what if it is a Battleship" his reply was "we shall attack regardless".   Of course Reader tossed this Admiral on the scrap heap.

Of course the best example of the KM's incompetence is the battle of the Berents Sea. A performance so bad that Hitler wanted to scrap the fleet afterward. 

Sure they were outgunned, certainly they could at best only pick and choose their opportunities to engage. But for the most part when they did, it was ugly. The merchant raiders did ok, but for the most part, germany would have been FAR better off not building Capital ships at all.

 

 

 

 

We chose a hull form that was easy to weld and bolt for the North Carolina. Our high pressure steam turbines worked so we thought we could get away with a smaller less massive power plant in the less curvy and less efficient hull.  The North Carolina if it had used the HMS Nelson's hull lines would have driven along at almost 30 knots on her power plant..

 

How do I know this?

 

HMS Vanguard 130,000 SHP at 30 knots @ 50,000 tons full load..Efficiency of slip 2.6

USS North Carolina 121,000 SHP @ 27 knots @ 44,700 tons full load  Efficiency of slip 2.7 

 

HMS  Vanguard average 4333 HP per knot^1 

USS North Carolina average HP per knot. 4481 HP per knot^1

 

These are actually log ratios, but I averaged them over the range to give you a feel for slipperiness and efficiency.

 

The Vanguard carried a LOT more armor as dead mass on her than North Carolina.. 

Herald

 

  .

USN battleship doctrine until Iowa class was building better protected but slower ships. North Carolina was not as protected as battleships of other nations but had 9 406 mm guns 3 triple turrets, which was stronger than armament of King George V class, for example; but was relatively slow with 27 knots (in comparation to Iowa). South Dakotas were more-less same, while Iowa put accent on speed. All three classes had strong anti-aircraft armament (North Carolina had 96 40-mm AA cannons.)

T-34 was problematic for both its crews and Germans-they were poor made, maximally simplified (only way for turning of turrett was by using wheel-tank had no hidraulyc system for turning turrett like German tanks, and, in best case, 1 out of twenty tanks was equipped with radio, while every German tank had one radio, command versions two radio units.) T-34 was make-in-garrage tank, while every German tank was state-of-art... exponate for technical museum. Wery deadly exponate in some cases.

Germans had problem with number of tanks avaliable. They produced 29 000 tanks during the war; while Soviets in 1943. produced 1300 T-34s per month.

 

There is list of 1943. production of tanks:

USSR - total of 20 000 tanks, of that number 15 600 T-34

Germany-total of max. 10 000 tanks; of that number 1768 Panthers, and 3054 Panzer IV.

 

For Production of 1 Panther was required 2000 work-hours; T-34 required less than half of that time. I personally think that Germans made mistake with Panthers-they should produce Panzer IV. There are some facts-for same amount of time and work it was possible to produce 2 Panzer IV instead of 1 Panther, or 3 Panzer IV instead of 1 Tiger. That means that Germans could produce 15 545 Panzer IV's more instead of all these Panthers and Tigers. 15 545 Panzer IV's more instead of 7095 Panthers (of which first 2000 tanks were heavily unreliable-I think that tanks of first series of Panthers spent more time on repairs than in combat) could make very big difference, especcially on Eastern front; but I dont think anything would change dramatically, expect maybe prolonging war into 1946.

 

 

 

"The tank-versus-tank role is also important. German tank production was limited to relatively small numbers of superior but complex vehicles (in part because of production diversion into self-propelled guns), which put them at a numerical disadvantage. The Soviet decision to build large numbers of T-34s, gradually improving and simplifying the design, proved to be a superior strategy that helped win World War II."

 

Germans realised that, but too late-only final version of Panzer IV was maximally simplified for production.

 

"A natural comparison can be made between the T-34 and the U.S. M4 Sherman medium tank. Each tank formed the backbone of the armoured units in their respective allied armies. The T-34 was a "world-beater" at the time of its debut, while the Sherman was a strong contender when introduced in 1942. Both models were upgraded and improved extensively throughout their service life, receiving new turrets with more powerful guns. Both were designed for ease of manufacture and maintenance, sacrificing some performance for this goal. Neither was a match for the heavy German Panther or Tiger tanks in armour or firepower, but the Soviet IS-2 heavy tank and American M26 Pershing were more comparable."

Sherman received 76 mm gun, and T-34 recieved 85 mm gun, both of which were fairly stronger than previous Sherman's

75 mm or T-34's 76.2 mm guns. Both these guns were technically able to penetrate armor of Tiger I (but not front armor of Tiger II), but German crews learned to evade that by turning body of tank 30-40 degrees from enemy, so enemy shells would strike armor at angle.

 

Also, M-26 Pershing was comparable to Tiger I, but not Tiger 2 who surpassed it in both terms of armor protection and penetration. (Tiger I could penetrate 135 mm armor at distance 1500 m under angle of 60 degrees. Panther could penetrate 115 mm on 1000 m under angle of 60 degrees or 160 mm at 90 degrees, while Tiger II and Jagdpanther were able to penetrate 159 mm at distance of 2300 m). (Tiger II and Jagdpanther used same 8.8 cm PaK 43/3 L/71 gun.)