Also, Panther is often regarded (along with T-34 and Sherman, as one of best tank designs of world war two.

The Soviets produced heavy tanks until the 1960's...the T-10M, was the last IIRC...and the US produced the M-103 in the 1950's...but you'll note they went away, even before the current crop of super-tanks.

 

Too big, too slow, too heavy, the MBT is the better bet.

 Thread.

Well hashed out with the final finding that the Germans screwed up their tank production by ignoring mobility as a primary armor factor, as well as sheer NUMBERS. They should have stuck to the Pamzer IV (Korval) and used the material they wasted on Siberian Tigers on Panther and StuG production.

      Anyway, Germany didn't have the steel, or the slips, or the yard workers, or the time. Raeder was supposed to know this. He ignored his own industrial policy people on this when they told him? When the USN R and C people were scrounging steel, trained manpower, and slips to build the Midways to kill Yamatos in mid 1942, canceled the Montanas to get those resources freed up, six months into the war, and they were trying to wrestle the USAAF for equally scarce aircraft resources to build a 5000 plane USNAF? Hello? Doenitz was still pleading with Raeder for increased U-boat production at the same TIME!

 

Herald

 

Abrams is by definition heavy tank... but that today does not matter anyway-tanks done well in WWII, but today they are outdated. Now anyone can take rocket launcher or Molotov coctail, hide in building and send tank to grave. Not to mention helicopters or fighter planes which could take tank out from 40 km distance-in fact, entire battallion of tanks cannot stand against single tank-killer chopper.

And, about USSR tanks befor WW2... before T-34 and KV tanks, soviet tanks had two or three turrets. I mean, 1 for gun, 1 for MG and one for another MG or whatever hell design team wanted to put... maybe even another cannon. These tanks were crap-too big (25% bigger dimensions than Panther), too slow, too weak armor (20-30 mm) and too heavy (50 tons at least).

 

 

I don't discuss tanks in a battleship thread: if you want to do that.........my views are here.

 

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 comparison 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.)

Why are you telling me something I already know? Just curious.

Kriegsmarine did not expected war with Britain until 1944., at which point they would have 10 H-class battleships and overall strength to fight Royal Navy on equal terms. Hitler messed Raeder's plans when he attacked Poland. Raeder planned (plan Z) to built 10 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 3 battlecruisers, 8 heavy cruisers, 44 light cruisers, 68 destroyers and 249 U-boats by 1944., which was meant to challenge naval might of United Kingdom.

Three indicators of incompetence shown right here.

1. 
   

   Trusting the civil administration at the time to keep its promises to anyone? With Ernst Roehm pushing up daisies, what made Rader think he could assume anything that the civil authority said, was going to be anything but a pack of lies? Canaris didn't assume that. Neither did Marshall.

   
   
   
2. 
   

   When were these goodies supposed to show up, again? With only three Class 1 slips for 250 meter hulls the earliest that battleship program could finish was 1954, not 1944.

   
   
   
3. 
   

   Where was the steel for this? I count almost 1 million tonnes for new shipping requirements. What was the armor plate capacity again? How about gun mills?

   
   
   
   

   What is the USN doing while this happens? Oh yeah, we trounce the Japanese and then turn our attention to Europe with those 28 battleships, 100 or so aircraft carriers more than 100 cruisers of all types, and 1000 destoyers, plus all those submarines (350 planned and almost 300 built) when we had the 3 million tonnes of steel and the shipyards to build all of that as we actually did.

   
   
   
   

   Aside: Did you know that up to ¼ of Stalin's tanks at the war's end were AMERICAN? There were a lot of Russian Shermans chasing the Wehrmacht, through Belorus, into Hungary and Czechoslovakia during 1944 Easy to FIX, well-made continuously running tanks. Didn't break down like a Panther. HE ammo in 1944 worked as designed. Good in mountain country. Same batch of Shermans showed up against the Japanese in August 1945 in Manchuria for the same reason.

   
   
   

 

 

I don't discuss tanks in a battleship thread: if you want to do that.........my views are here.

 

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 comparison 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.)

Why are you telling me something I already know? Just curious.

Kriegsmarine did not expected war with Britain until 1944., at which point they would have 10 H-class battleships and overall strength to fight Royal Navy on equal terms. Hitler messed Raeder's plans when he attacked Poland. Raeder planned (plan Z) to built 10 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 3 battlecruisers, 8 heavy cruisers, 44 light cruisers, 68 destroyers and 249 U-boats by 1944., which was meant to challenge naval might of United Kingdom.

Three indicators of incompetence shown right here.

1. 
   

   Trusting the civil administration at the time to keep its promises to anyone? With Ernst Roehm pushing up daisies, what made Rader think he could assume anything that the civil authority said, was going to be anything but a pack of lies? Canaris didn't assume that. Neither did Marshall.

   
   
   
2. 
   

   When were these goodies supposed to show up, again? With only three Class 1 slips for 250 meter hulls the earliest that battleship program could finish was 1954, not 1944.

   
   
   
3. 
   

   Where was the steel for this? I count almost 1 million tonnes for new shipping requirements. What was the armor plate capacity again? How about gun mills?

   
   
   
   

   What is the USN doing while this happens? Oh yeah, we trounce the Japanese and then turn our attention to Europe with those 28 battleships, 100 or so aircraft carriers more than 100 cruisers of all types, and 1000 destoyers, plus all those submarines (350 planned and almost 300 built) when we had the 3 million tonnes of steel and the shipyards to build all of that as we actually did.

   
   
   
   

   Aside: Did you know that up to ¼ of Stalin's tanks at the war's end were AMERICAN? There were a lot of Russian Shermans chasing the Wehrmacht, through Belorus, into Hungary and Czechoslovakia during 1944 Easy to FIX, well-made continuously running tanks. Didn't break down like a Panther. HE ammo in 1944 worked as designed. Good in mountain country. Same batch of Shermans showed up against the Japanese in August 1945 in Manchuria for the same reason.

   
   
   

Leech Wrote:

Kriegsmarine did not expected war with Britain until 1944., at which point they would have 10 H-class battleships and overall strength to fight Royal Navy on equal terms. Hitler messed Raeder's plans when he attacked Poland. Raeder planned (plan Z) to built 10 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 3 battlecruisers, 8 heavy cruisers, 44 light cruisers, 68 destroyers and 249 U-boats by 1944., which was meant to challenge naval might of United Kingdom.

Yes, of course I know about Plan Z....But that is not my point. What I was talking about was the quality of leadership in the Kriegsmarine. As I said in my earlier thread, outside of a few examples, their record was very poor. On those rare occasions when the fight was more or less fair, The RN usually got the best of them.   Initiative was frown upon. 

 

Two examples.

 

1)       Marschall attacks and sinks HMS Glorious and escorts. Reader puts him ashore for having the gall to disregard an order to attack Harstad (which Marschall knew had been abandoned. The Admiral never went to sea for KM again

 

2)       Captain Hoffman of Scharnhorst attempts to Lure Ramillies away from a convoy it is protecting with hopes that this will allow Gneisenau free to attack the then unguarded ships. Lutjens calls off the attack and reprimands the Captain for his actions.

 

 

The high seas fleet?s obsession with not taking risk tells me that their problem was only partially a lack of ships. It was also incompetence. At the tactical, strategic and planning levels.

 

Remember Lindemann?s words on the bridge of Bismarck as two RN Capital ships opened fire on him while his Admiral gave no order:

?I will not have my ship shot out from under my ass?    And opened fire.

 

While the ship?s officers and crews gave a good effort when given the opportunity. The Navy?s leadership was sadly lacking.

 

Do you remember what Nelson did to the French Marine at the Battle of the Nile? They never were worth spit to Napoleon  afterward. I think Jutland might have scarred the German surface fleet leadership the same way. I think the officers who served in that battle had it impressed on them, that the Royal Navy was just a BETTER NAVY, and no matter what they tried they, the Germans, would lose.

 

I think the USN gave that impression to the Nihon Kaigun in spades, and by extension to everyone else in WW II, as a result of Midway. I don't see how anyone sensible can explain Samar's result any other way.

 

I really believe that a defeatist psychology can hobble an officer corps in battle.

 

Herald

 

 

 

 

 

Lindemann's reaction was normal, but his Admiral (I can't remember name right now) was under orders not to engage surface RN battle units, commerce raiding only. He simply tried to follow his orders, beacouse every battle takes time, and probably to evade British ships in race.
I don't know about Kriegsmarine High Command, but front-line officers were OK. And Kriegsmarine really lacked ships.  At the end of WWII entire Royal Navy wasn't larger than single US operative group 77 in Pacific. Kriegsmarine was in even worse shape-how it could counter USN whet it couldn't counter UK navy?

   Moreover, Hitler refused to built more subs, although Erich Raeder tried to persuade him. When Hitler finally removed all limitations for submarine building programme in July of 1940., it was already too late-UK already developed better anti-sub defences and begun receiving help from US.

Convoys proved to be good system until mid-1941. and beginning of German submarine "wolf pack" tactics-several subs would wait for convoy, and one which first saw convoy would give signal and then all subs would attack convoy in coordinated attack. There was no really successfull way to counter that until arrival of US hunter-killer groups.

Battle of Samar? Kurita retreated at the moment when he had victory at hand. Only thing which still stood between him and US desant forces were 16 escort carriers under command of admirall Spragg. Americans threw every plane they managed to get at Japanese ships, even knowing that planes were inadequatly armed against battleships-they only had light anti-submarine bombs, and they only had severalb escort destroyers with few torpedoes. Resulting mess had effect that battle, which should have finished in half-an-hour with complete destruction of escort carrier group, prolonged for two hours-and then they came near another E.C. group which also found itself under attack. (First group lost escort carriers Gamber Bay and Saint Louis, destroyers Hel and Johnson and escort destroyer Robert, while 4 carriers were badly damaged.) US planes were arriving from all sides and attacked as they could-105 planes were shot down as result. (NOTE: Admiral Kinkaid had strong forces and has finished off south Japanese group already, but his ships were running off fuel and ammunition.)

Around noon Kurita was only 40 miles from desant fleet. But, in 12 hrs 36 minutes Kurita broke off attack and turned north, back to San Bernardino strait, cancelled operation and threw all success and work and casualties which made that possible in water. Reasons why he had done this were never explained. It seems that he mistook escort carriers for large fleet carriers, and many planes attacking his fleet gave impression of much larger enemy forces that they really were. Hidroplanes of his cruisers were destroyed or damaged in air attacks day before. Also, some think that Kurita wasn't informed that US Third fleet was 500 miles from Leyte, nor that Seventh fleet was unable for any action beacouse of fuel and ammunition shortage. But he already started receiving help from kamikaze units. With his retreat, battle of Samar effectively ended.

 

If you add this to what you mentioned-impression made by US Navy-all might seem more reasonable. Until battle of Midway, Japanese navy was deemed invincible by Japanese. Battle of Midway was first major defeat of Japanese navy since 1592. Japanese expected that they will surprise US Navy, but they found themselves surprised by US attacks. USN lost 1 carrier, 1 destroyer, 150 planes and 307 men; while IJN lost 4 carriers, 1 cruiser, 2 destroyers, 253 planes and 3500 men, plus very capable Rear Admiral Jamagushi, which was marked as Jamamoto's successor by Japanese. But Japanese also lost their elite pilots, which was loss they never recovered from. Since battle of Midway, almost all major naval engagements of Japanese navy were defeats.

 

 

 

There was another situation in German Navy. Bismarck's crew was not happy for Admiral Lutjens choosing Bismarck as his flagship, beacouse he was well-known fatalist. Also, Lutjens was determined to follow his orders down to letter, beacouse his predecessor on his previous command post on Scharnhorst/Gneiseau battle group disobeyed his orders by attacking british forces which were retreating from France, sinking HMS Glorius, and her destroyer escorts Acasta and Ardent, but receiving torpedo hit on Scharnhorst. His failure to follow orders resulted in him being replaced by Lutjens, and in Lutjens determination to follow his orders down to the letter to avoid suffering same fate. (NOTE-Lutjens was one of only three flag officers who protested in writing against the Anti-Jewish "Kristallnacht progroms".).

Johhny Horton-Sink the Bismark

link

I've read the popular histories.too many times to really pay them any attention. He scattered his forces with a general chase signal, and lost signal lamp and flag hoist contact. Radio contact and discipline broke down as the command dissolved into chaos.

 

See Chart:

As you might see by the timeline and the damage inflicted (three cruisers sunk to that point and one mortally wounded) Kurita had a very good idea that he was going to be wiped out. Saint Lo (not Lois-it was named after the French city not the US city) was hot an hour after Kurita fled.. The floatplane excuse doesn't hild water, either, there were Japanese aircraft buzzing around and they squawked at Kuruta what they saw until they were shot down or chased off. I doubt that ANT excuse excepot that the one which makes sense based on the evidence shown can be cited. Kurita turned tail and RAN. That is cowardice. His orders were to attack the landing sites.