Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

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Korvessa
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Re: Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

Post by Korvessa »

adiekmann wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 4:33 pm
jeannot le lapin wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 11:27 am The tanks that shoot while rolling, is that realistic for the time ?
No, in fact I read once an American report from during the war report how German tank crews always seemed to fire when stationary. And it makes sense why. They did have the best optics (Zeiss), but not the technology of today to keep the main gun trained on the target while moving. In fact, if I remember correctly, it was taught German tank doctrine.
I trained with tanks for a few months in 1988 (M60A3 - but I know that there are likely far more experienced tread-heads here than me). But for me, it was hard enough to hit a moving target when you are moving even then. In WW2 I would bet it was next to impossible - at normal combat ranges anyway.
Yes there are all kinds of gizmos to stabilize the gun these days - but that doesn't tell you what's going on in the inside of the turret.
When a tank is on the move over anything but a paved road, you are bouncing all over the place (no seat belts or shock absorbers) and the gun breech is bouncing up and down like crazy. Those videos of tanks jumping ditches are hell inside.
At the time, the preferred tank position was "turret down" - meaning behind something with only the commander able to see. When a target appears you pop up, stop when gunner acquires target, fire and back up to "turret down." All of which takes a lot less time than I just spent typing this.
Now, if you are just doing suppressive fire or recon by fire, where pinpoint accuracy isn't that critical, that is a different matter.
I imagine the newest generation of tanks have improved a lot since 1988 when I last rode a tank - but I bet the above still has a lot of truth to it.
dalfrede
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Re: Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

Post by dalfrede »

From Wikipedia [for the M4} :
"One feature, a one-axis gyrostabilizer, was not precise enough to allow firing when moving but did help keep the gun aimed in roughly the right direction for when the tank stopped to fire."
There comes a time on every project when it is time to shoot the engineer and ship the damn thing.
proline
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Re: Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

Post by proline »

o_t_d_x wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 11:03 am The problem is, that hollywood isnt interested in the eastern front.
Hollywood movies do best if they have a clear hero and are good vs. evil. The eastern front was pure evil on both sides. There you have the two variants of authoritarian socialism that started the war killing each other for supremacy over what remains after the war.
jeannot le lapin
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Re: Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

Post by jeannot le lapin »

proline wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 1:34 am
o_t_d_x wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 11:03 am The problem is, that hollywood isnt interested in the eastern front.
Hollywood movies do best if they have a clear hero and are good vs. evil. The eastern front was pure evil on both sides. There you have the two variants of authoritarian socialism that started the war killing each other for supremacy over what remains after the war.
I agree with you on the eastern front, fight evil with evil by choosing to support the least worst.
o_t_d_x
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Re: Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

Post by o_t_d_x »

In war there are never good guys. All are more or less evil.

The americans for exampel werent good in ww2. They killed civilians on purpose, they killed soldiers that surrendered, they killed our "baby ss division" that sonsisted of 14-16 year old boys, they raped hundred thousands of women (not much compared to the russians that raped millions...) and of course they have been very racistic. When black soldiers raped it was a crime and was punished, white rapists had good chances that nothing happened. (all us sources...seen on the german state tv zdf) They made low fighter attacks ag. civilians, my grandma told me of that and its mentioned in some docus.

The british mass murdered millions of german women, children and old people with their carpet bombings on civlian targets. (Bomber Harris i hope you rott in hell for that.) And germans and russians, well, i dont have to tell you about their crimes.

The catholics are right: If you fight the dragon, you have already lost. Because you become the dragon, step by step. In other words: War is hell and hell transforms men into monsters. All sides.

When i was in school we went to the cinema with our history teacher. We all thought, wow what boring shit movie will we watch now and many laughed. Well it was Saving Private Ryan...when the german machine guns and artillery started to butcher the us gi´s nobody laughed anymore. This opening scene had such a high impact on us, we were shocked. Never have we seen war in such a brutal and authentic way. Absolutly no one wanted to join the military, after that movie.

A well made super hard and realistic movie about the eastern front mass butchering would increase that effect dramatically. There are still too many young fools out there, that think that war is heroic.

And if us movies work best with the old black white sceme, then us movies are not very ambitious and not about our world. Because reality is not black or white, its grey: For exampel: russian jews told that there were ss soldiers that warned them of their own ss group. Think this is true, because why should jews lie to let the ss look good or at least 2 soldiers ? So these two men are heroes, but i am sure they werent heroic all the time before. Chances are high, that even these 2 could have killed jews before. Maybe they were very sorry for their crimes and tried to compensate a little for that. And by the way, who do you think inspired us very much regarding racism ?

Hitler was very impressed with the us racist programm. We took over many things like making non wanted people unfertile f. ex.. (even sweden did that...). So please dont call the americans good guys. They never have been good guys, they have always been selfish and mercyless, if it was good for them. (not the normal people, but the goverment) Good americans is propaganda, just like russians having no high casualties in 41, is propaganda too. (And one of the main reasons i dont like russian war movies. Instead of honoring their victims and their big sacrifice, they negate it.)

And last but not least: Wasnt the russian attack on kiev the "best" example of how not to do lightning war fare ? :lol:
Retributarr
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Re: Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

Post by Retributarr »

Too... the Upset and Disgruntled:

Yes!... all the participants in WWII had their hand in atrocities and war-crimes... including Germany. Some of your statements are valid... and others are just pure out-right outlandish fabrications... do study your history more closely with an unbiased outlook... to get to the real-actual truth... instead of what or which you prefer to believe.
Korvessa
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Re: Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

Post by Korvessa »

To Summarize:
Western Allies: Their cause was just, even if a very few were less than noble.
On the other hand, there were also men like my father: A decorated paratrooper with 2 stars on his jump wings (Normandy, Varsity & also fought in the Bulge). He had seen many of his friends die. Yet, during the battle for Germany, he crawled out under fire to give first aid to a severely wounded German grandma. She would have died had he not helped her.

Soviet Union: An evil regime whose cause was partly just (defending themselves) & partly just as evil as Germany:
Ask any Pole or Finn.

Germany: An evil regime with evil intent that had to be stopped no matter the cost
SSLConf_pewp3w
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Re: Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

Post by SSLConf_pewp3w »

o_t_d_x wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 12:00 pm They killed civilians on purpose, they killed soldiers that surrendered, they killed our "baby ss division" that sonsisted of 14-16 year old boys, they raped hundred thousands of women (not much compared to the russians that raped millions...) and of course they have been very racistic.

The british mass murdered millions of german women, children and old people with their carpet bombings on civlian targets. (Bomber Harris i hope you rott in hell for that.)
I don't want to reply to everything you have written, but I HAVE to clarify the things in the quote, because you are twisting the facts quite a bit. Mainly you are inflating the numbers. There haven't been hundred thousands of rapes by western soldiers. It was ten thousands, and rather a low number of ten thousands. Of course not all of them were documented, but the number you give is much to high. Same goes for your second statement, that the british "mass murdered millions of german women, children and old people with their carpet bombings". The number of civilian casualties by all allied bombing was far below even one million. It also was not a war crime. War Crimes are not what you personally consider bad, but what violates the rules of war. During wwii there were no distinctive rules regarding strategic bombardment. So it can't be a war crime. This may sound a bit legalistic, but still holds true. You can still condemn the bombings, as I do myself, but who sows the wind, reaps the whirlwind. (Remember the german bombings of warsawa, rotterdam, great britain, leningrad, belgrade etc.)

I don't really understand how killing minor combatants can be construed as a war crime, especially if you are referring to the ss-division "Hitlerjugend". What were the allies supposed to do? Reason with them? They were one of the most fanatic ss-divisions, having received most of their education from the NS-State. The real crime here is, that the ns-state sent these soldiers into the fight. Mind you, not a war crime, since it was not forbidden to send minors into combat during wwii, but the fault definitely rests not on the allies here.

Of course the western allies committed war crimes, but on a far lesser scale than the germans or soviets. If there has ever been a conflict in human history were you can actually call one side the good guys, it was wwii, since the germans during this time period represented pure evil. That does not mean that everything the western allies did was okay or absolve them from their crimes, but you can not equate german, soviet and western allied crimes.
Sequester Grundleplith, MD
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Re: Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

Post by Sequester Grundleplith, MD »

Yikes this thread went haywire
Edmon
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Re: Military Tank Expert Rates Tank Battles

Post by Edmon »

Sequester Grundleplith, MD wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 1:34 pm Yikes this thread went haywire
Indeed.

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