Common Myths About WWII

Before you guys start whining about Communist propaganda, SS asked me to do this, and The_Chieftain (WGA’s historian) put in his corrections into the list, as well as various posters of the World of Tanks NA forums. Some of these should be familiar to you, while others are a little more obscure. Still, don’t repeat them!

Myth: Belton Cooper’s book “Death Traps” is a good book about the Sherman.
Fact: Belton Cooper was a mechanic during the war, and thus lacked a good overall perspective of the Sherman’s performance. His laments about Shermans being no good against Tigers and Panthers are questionable, as his unit did not encounter Tigers and Panthers when he said it did. Furthermore, a portion of his book is dedicated to a rant about a Yankee conspiracy when it came to naming the tank, despite the fact that “Sherman” was a British nickname. The American designation was “Medium Tank M4″. To be fair, the Sherman name did make it into official documentation in 1944, but the common soldiers never used it. (Partial credit: The_Chieftain)

Myth: Shermans were prone to fires due to the gasoline engines, and were nicknamed “Ronson” by their crews.
Fact: Shermans were not especially fire-prone (consider German tanks that also used gasoline engines, but avoid this reputation). Fires were caused by improper storage of ammunition, when it was literally stuffed everywhere inside the tank it could fit. The end of this practice drastically reduced the number of Sherman fires. The Ronson nickname is attributed to the slogan “lights every time”. The slogan was launched post-war, and thus could not influence the nickname.

Myth: German tanks in general, and Tigers in particular, were impervious to Allied guns.
Fact: Tigers were vulnerable to even Shermans armed with 75 mm guns. The longer 76 mm gun (superior in AP performance to the Soviet 85 mm gun, which could handle Tigers just fine) had no problem with Tigers or Panthers. British “Firefly” Shermans equipped with 17 pounder guns could effectively combat any German armour, including Tiger II tanks.

Myth: The Germans enjoyed unprecedented success in Europe due to the “Blitzkrieg” doctrine.
Fact: Blitzkrieg was never a doctrine. Zinegata explored the topic here.

Myth: German and crews were superior to anything the Allies had, and achieved an X:1 kill to death ratio (the number varies greatly).
Fact: The flaws of German kill counts are covered in detail here and here.

Myth: Soviet optics were abysmal, and their guns inaccurate, to the point where they could not engage enemy targets at more than a few hundred meters.
Fact: Soviet guns do not lack mechanical accuracy, and are occasionally more accurate than their German counterparts. As for optics, Americans praised them at Aberdeen trials: “Consensus: the gun sights are the best in the world. Incomparable to any currently known worldwide or currently developed in America.”.

Myth: The T-34 was a very unreliable tank, as proven by trials at Aberdeen.
Fact: While trials at Aberdeen uncovered some flaws in early T-34 tanks, the tank sent to them was an obsolete model that went through major refurbishment. Furthermore, American testing was flawed (for example, they failed to oil up the air filter). Read more details here and here.

Myth: Order #227 of the People’s Commissariat of Defense, nicknamed “Not One Step Back”, allowed for executions of Soviet soldier and officers without trial by commissars for retreating.
Fact: Many people have heard of the order, but never actually read it. The text of the order states that officers that retreat without authorization are to be relieved of duty and face court-martial. Court-martial for disobeying orders is common procedure in any army. “Panickers and cowards should be executed”, however, did allow for overzealous interpretation. The order is also frequently confused with Order #270, which allowed for execution of any commander or political worker that removes their rank insignia and flees to the rear or surrenders to the enemy.

Myth: The King Tiger could not be penetrated by any tank gun.
Fact: The Tiger II was penetrated many times by various weapons in trials. Even the meek 85 mm gun on the T-34-85 was capable of dealing a fatal blow to it at 300 meters. The Wikipedia article for the Tiger II has a very nice photo of a Tiger II with a 17 pounder hole in the front.
Ironically, the only weapon in Soviet tests that was consistently incapable of penetrating the front of the Tiger II was the Panther’s gun, even with APCR.

Myth: If the Germans could build the Maus, they would win the war for sure, as it would be invincible!
Fact: Even if the Germans managed to get a Maus into combat without it getting stuck, the Soviets had guns that were capable of fighting it by 1944: the BL-8/10 and BL-9 (and, if you want to go back further, various 107 mm guns).

Myth: Germans had the best optics in the entire war.
Fact: Not really, just some minor advantages in sight form factors (and not glass quality, like is often said). Daigensui explores the topic here. (Credit: Daigensui)

Myth: Soviet Cold War era armour was abysmal, and the Americans had nothing to fear from it.
Fact: The CIA disagrees.

Myth: Germans could knock out Allied tanks at great ranges, and routinely did so from distances as great as 2 kilometers or even greater.
Fact: Research indicates that the average engagement range was only several hundred meters. Shots from over 1 kilometer were either rarely taken, or rarely reached their target.

Myth: The Panther was a great tank that could have turned the tide of the war if only _________.
Fact: Panthers, even the latest models, were full of mechanical issues, such as final drives that lasted 150 kilometers. The_Chieftain goes over them here. Additionally, the armour was of exceptionally poor quality, cracking after non-penetrating hits. (Credit: Jeeps_Guns_Tanks)

Myth: A SuperPershing knocked out a King Tiger at Dassau.
Fact: Only if it had a teleporter of some kind.

Myth: Shermans were not meant to engage enemy tanks, and were supposed to run away whenever they saw them.
Fact: There is no such instruction in the War Department Armored Force Field Manual. (Credit: Brickfight)

Myth: The SS were an elite fighting force, especially their armoured divisions.
Fact: The success attributed to the SS is mostly based on their war diaries (Tigers in Combat). The diaries had little to do with reality (Tigers in Normandy). Even the Wehrmacht slashed the claims of the SS in half when estimating their performance, and Schneider’s research shows that even that was an optimistic figure. For example, Wittmann’s famous battle at Villers-Bocage where he is claims 20 kills only had 7 to his name. His victory was blown out of proportion by SS propaganda, since they were desperate for a tank ace among their own, routinely assigning an entire unit’s accomplishments to one tank/crew.
Most people focus on the three SS divisions that were LAH, Reich, and Totenkopf, which were equivalent to a Wehrmacht division at the best of times. The remaining SS divisions were barely Volkssturm quality, assigned to rear line duties such as executing civilians and fighting partisans. (Credit: Zinegata, Brickfight)

Myth: Early war French tanks were awful and no match for German armour.
Fact: The B1, Hotchkiss, and Somua tanks were superior to German tanks in armament and armour thickness. However, “soft” characteristics (gas tank capacity, for instance) allowed German tanks to avoid battle with them. (Credit: Priory_of_Sion)

Myth: The IS tank was created as a direct counter to the Tiger tank.
Fact: Here is a list of GABTU’s requests on the matter. The IS tank is not in it. The IS was meant to replace the KV as a breakthrough tank. The ability to combat enemy armour was a secondary, not a primary, requirement. (Credit: Brickfight)

Myth: German tanks were superior to all of their contemporaries even in the early war, and the Germans scoffed at whatever they faced in battle.
Fact: While the PzIII and PzIV were solid vehicles, they were available in small numbers. The Germans gladly used captured Czech tanks, and even French tanks up to and including the Renault FT (Sotvoreniye Broni, Y. Reznik).Even old Soviet tanks were no exception.

Myth: The Marine Corps used the M4A2 Sherman because they wanted fuel commonality with the Navy and Springfield rifles because they were considered more reliable.
Fact: The Marine Corps during WWII was a bit of a red-headed stepchild of the US military. They had to make do with equipment no one else wanted, which included old rifles and diesel Shermans. (Partial credit: Walther_Sobchak)
That’s it for now. If you want more, be sure to follow the thread on the NA WoT forums.

 

 

414 thoughts on “Common Myths About WWII

  1. I must say, partly flawed as it is, this game and its’ community did a great job at debunking a lot of WWII myths.

    • I don’t think this helped at all. Most of these facts are without context or without full details. Without context these facts and the way they’re presented mean almost nothing. Some of them are also widely inaccurate when compared with more widely accepted and better researched data.

      Its like the Tiger II myth of it being impervious to front hits. No, of cause it wasn’t impervious but as yet, its never been proven it was penetrated frontally in combat. All examples of it being penetrated were during some sort of test firing, either at various test centres post war or literally on the side of the road where the tank was found.

      • Ok then: I am immune to bullets, because I have never been shot dead in combat. Any tests comparing the relative soft fleshyness of my body to the penetration power of bullets is irrelevant!

        • But the fact that I was never shot in battle means something, tank isn’t only its armour… And suggesting that German optics quality had nothing to do with Zeiss glass – stopped reading

          • Your dogma is broken. Oh noe it can’t be true. Read linked article about it and you’ll get what’s wrong with it.

        • You’re unable to grasp the element of context. So I guess these ‘facts’ are perfect for you.

        • True, you may be impervious to shells, but after a 122mm HE hit to the front, all/almost all of your crew will be dead.
          Is that a kill confirmed?

    • Myth’s? Most of these where propaganda created by the west to demonize certain countries.

  2. The M4A2 was used by the USMC for the fact that diesel works in salt water environment, not because the M4A2 was a left over and given to them just for the so called “Red-Headed” shit.

    The M1903 Springfield Rifle were standard issued until 1942 when there was enough M1s to begin to outfit the expanded USMC, the 1st Marine Div was not fully outfitted per TO&E until after Guadalcanal 1943.

      • Uhm, not sure how what you linked to disproves anything.
        The way I heard it conforms to what is written here.The “regular” Shermans being produced were allocated to the US army and LL with the Marines scheduled to pick up later batches. The M4A2 could be picked up straight away. Wanting tanks straight away rather then later the USMC picked them up. The diesel fuel was nice but didn’t the USMC stop using diesel Shermans late in the war? So it was probably not their prime motivator in getting the M4a2.

        Oh, and the Red Headed Stepchild comment rings true to me. Guess what, the USMC budget comes out of the budget for the Navy, who kinda like their money to go to ships and maybe planes once Billy Mitchell was finally vindicated. “Marines make do” is almost as much their motto as “Semper Fidelis”. That is not an accident.

        • The story of how the Marines ended up with the diesel engine variant of the Sherman tank is well documented in Ken Estes book “Marines under Armor” pages 55-58. The book explains how the Marine Corps was initially suspicious of the M4A2 as they felt it was underpowered. They accepted the A2 as it was the only version that was available to them right away, any other version would require waiting several months. Once it was in service, the Marines found the liked the A2. One reason they gave for liking it was that it’s diesel fuel was less flammable than gasoline, an important factor considering that Japanese anti-tank practice often involved infantry swarming vehicles and placing magnetic mines on the engine compartment. Also, they stated that they liked the twin engine design, which meant that if one engine was damaged in combat, the vehicle could still move powered by the remaining engine. Later in the war when production was stopped on the A2, the Corps complained about having to adopt the M4A3 version.

  3. It is unfortunate that you decided to go the “communist propaganda” route instead of “just the facts” on many of these myths. There is a very obvious bias to the myths selected and the manner in which you worded you debunking.

    The linked thread is worthwhile if this is a subject that interests you.

    • There is an obvious focus on particular myths because those are the ones which are the most insidious. If more people asserted more obscure, less Wehrmacht/SS-centric myths, they would be named. Unfortunately, the reality is that most of the bullshit we have to wade through on the forums is in the form of “The SS were the most elite fighting force on Earth”, “The Tiger was the greatest armoured vehicle ever built”, “Soviet manufacturing was garbage in every field”, and so on. Regardless of personal politics, most of these myths are the combined result of the Cold War and a desire to hype up our own soldiers’ feats during WWII.

    • Well you can go back to Nazi Germany of Capitalist police state America then and read about how inferior everyone else is and how superior your country is then if that makes you feel better.

  4. Don’t care about communist propaganda and that shit, but a lot of these seems like a total bullshit to me. By these “facts” you could say that Germans were complete noobs, idiots and their tanks were the worst out there. I’m not saying they were superior in everything, but this whole article made them look really worse than the worst. One would ask himself how they managed to that much in ww2 and not lose in 2 days to allies.

    • Lel, they lost the war for a reason, don’t you think? Anyway no one is saying that German tanks were complete crap, but they had several defects like being generally overengineered or suffering from lack of qualified workforce and materials late in the war.

      • “Lel, they lost the war for a reason, don’t you think?”

        Are u braindamed or what? Are capable of thinking of the reasons ur blank statement is stupid as hell, how would u survive when u get beaten up by +6?!

        Its stupid to fight on several fronts and attacking alone one of the strongest enemies, in years you will run out of ressources and the most important one no more oil = no more tanks, ships, uboots, planes and vehicles and all this with one nation against all.

        • > Are capable of thinking of the reasons ur blank statement is stupid as hell, how would u survive when u get beaten up by +6?!
          No dude, it’s your statement that was stupid.
          >Germans were complete noobs, idiots
          They were complete idiots for placing themselves in that two front war situation in the first place.

            • Right, who needs silly declarations of war when you can invade the hell out of central Europe while the rest of the world is pretending to look away. Pro-tip: there’s a point where others had to realise that there’s an elephant in the room: the German’s dream of Lebensraum or whatnot.

            • And you are ignorant if you think the reason war was declared on Germany was to stop them from being mean to their neighbors.

            • >Strange, you almost make it sound like Germany declared war on France and Britain.
              Like it wasn’t due to GB guaranteeing independence of Poland. Learn to history m8.

          • <>

            Yeah because they totally wanted japan to drag america into the war…
            No one ever said that their motivations for invading europe were justified or smart but that their tanks were pretty damn good
            ohh and about the myths …
            the only gun not able to penetrate the kingtiger is the panthers gun … WTF is that bullshit?! Panthers gun was known to be superor to the shermans 76 guns and russian 85mm guns. But since those are soviet testresults and those myths are translated from russian into english im not surprised about the content and the result of thos “myths”

        • Make up your mind idiot, you’ve used yourself the term “stupid” towards German… The previous poster said what was wrong with German tanks – they were overengineered in parts, where Soviets used simple solutions. That made German tanks advanced, but unreliable, especially in the Soviet territory. Add to that so many other issues , like overstreching supply lines, problems with raw materials, manpower (i.e., Germans were not using women in their fighting force, or even support force, when their manpower was already so much smaller). One can go on and name mistakes the Germans made. The main mistake was the fact, that they were ruled by an idiot (who they’ve elected themselves, so it says you about the Germans a little…), who was incompetent in terms of strategy, as well as other military decisions, like the stupid war projects that only ate resources and looked cool (super heavy tanks i.e.). Soviets also had and idiot on steer (i.e. brilliant idea of murdering most of the experienced commanders in the 30′s), but the quick losses on the begining of the war changed that – the marshals/generals had more to say, and well, they were not afraid to use sometimes strategies, that only Soviets could use (wave attacks i.e.). They were also receiving help in materials, as well as opening in other fronts from the Allies.

          • just to dismiss your little “it tells you about them” flame: they (as in they, the majority) did not vote vor hitler. 30something percent of the votes does not equal a majority.

        • “all this with one nation against all”. Japan, Italy (and Austria), muslim soldiers(wich did not come from germany).

      • Word of friendly advice, starting a resposne with “Lel” makes you look like a retard and hardly anyone will bother to continue to read your crap.

    • Germany were bad at fighting, bad at building armoured vehicles, and lucked out in beginning the war when they did (which was several years sooner than the military wanted, at that). Britain and France were still dragging their feet doctrinally, France was particularly reluctant to repeat 1914-1918, the RKKA had just lost most of its experienced officers (not to mention its morale) to Stalin’s purges, and they were in the middle of a massive modernisation program.

      Had the Germans attacked any other time, they would’ve had their teeth kicked in, because aside from France and the USSR, none of the countries they invaded were exactly known for their military competence.

    • The reason germany lost the war was very simple he almost fought entirely alone against the rest of the world. Such war is pointless you cant win it unless enemy is totally inferior in manpower and tech level.

  5. Myths about the myths:
    “The Soviet delegation reported that the optics design was called best construction of any tanks existing or in development in US.”
    Or, maybe not. Look what the US said about their own sights.
    “TM9-2601 ELEMENTARY OPTICS (April 1945) says that (US) military optical devices may have a light transmission efficiency of as little as 75%. That is, the objective appears to be only 3/4 of full, naked-eye brilliance.”
    Now compare that to what the T-34 sights were like:
    British Prelimary Report Feb, 1944 on the T-34 the Russians sent them. “The light transmission rate. The telescoptic sight has a transmission of 39.2% and the periscopic telescope of 26.3%.”

    Not so good.

  6. >Soviet Cold War era armour was abysmal, and the Americans had nothing to fear from it.
    This is not really a WWII myth, from what I know it started after the first Gulf War because of “monkey model” T-72s and low quality ammo used by the Iraqi army.
    Anyway congratulations for the efforts but people will keep saying that it’s just communist propaganda, even when you quote Chieftain or Daigensui…

    • The Gulf War happened after The Cold War, and those monkey tanks were pretty much Iraqian copies build out of far worse quality material and standards (due reasons), including Iraq getting scammed on ammunition buys.

    • Thats right T54/55 was a pretty good tank and, if because of nothing else, was dangerous because of its numbers alone
      The next big step was T72 wich is far from being bad and was a major improvement over the outdated T54/55, T62 and T64
      The allied approach was superiority due to high technology such as gun stabilasation nighvision, optics and such wich is partly true because experts agree that the american tanks were equipped with superior technical equipment. However that does not mean that the soviets did not come very close to the performance but with alot cheaper and faster to produce tanks.
      The mainadvantage of the allied tanks over their soviet counterparts are the better crewtraining and the tanks being far more comfortable wich is important in long lasting battles

      • The t 55 was better than anything we had until the m 60 . Only the british centurion3 was better (maybe) . When comparing the western and eastern designs people always get the timelines screwed up .. The t 64 was put in service a mere 2 years after the m60 and was vastly superior to it by any metric .. USA was a best in many weapon systems but tanks was not one of them .

      • The T-72 was not an improvement over the T-64. It was the result of efforts to get a T-64 level of technology into a cheaper tank that could be produced in larger numbers. At best, it was equal in many ways. Later on, the T-72 got a better set of upgrades and eventually surpassed it, but that took many years.

        The CIA thing is hilarious. Post-USSR breakup, when the Americans actually got their hands on these things, the CIA looked like total monkeys. They’re all still very good tanks of course, and the threat of numerical superiority still stands, but Soviet armour was never quite as good as the spooks made it out to be. Probably wasn’t a problem given that US armour was fairly mediocre as well.

        • Did you read the report? It’s 1979, the M60A1 is the best tank the US is fielding at the time and it is nothing up against a T64/72, still outclassed by the T62. It was homogenous steel against rapidly advancing Soviet tech. Sure once the M1 appears the story slightly changes against the T64/72s, but before that don’t believe the Patton was at the time anything amazing.

    • Interesting that they don’t mention chieftain anywhere on that CIA document. I think (and by all means correct me if I’m wrong here) that the British-made tanks were always the ones with the best shot when put up against their soviet counterparts. The commonwealth Centurions proved themselves first-rate tanks in Korea, I think that Conqueror would’ve got the job done despite the lack of a similar trial by fire and Chieftain; despite the awful mechanical reliability on the early models, was certainly a fearsome bit of kit. Later models of which went on to perform reasonably well in Iranian hands against Iraqi T-72s in the Iran-Iraq war (although admittedly the Iraqi tanks were of inferior quality than their soviet counterparts).

      • They did mention the UK procurement of 100 “Chieftain Challengers 120mm” by 1985, but in the context of the document they were really saying “too few, not soon enough” as it is a 1979 document and they’re expecting the T-80 to appear before they can even work out if they can get composite armour working on the XM1.

        Also they state that most NATO forces will be relying on 105mm and smaller caliber tanks, which is true.

      • Korea don’t mean shit in terms of tank-versus-tank, given that all the North had were WW2-vintage Soviet hand-me-downs. Just sayin’.

          • ‘S pretty decent from what I gather – modern armies aren’t in the habit of building *bad* multi-million-dollar MBTs – but yeah, curbstomping a few worn-out Monkey Models in Sandniggeristan doesn’t add up to terribly convincing bragging rights.

        • Despite the fact that the Communist forces were equipped with mostly T34-85s in Korea the Centurion did prove itself a first-rate fighting machine. Its optics and gun were extremely accurate and its reliability and cross-country performance were equally hailed for being very good. As many sources have already shown a tank’s role includes much more than shooting up enemy tanks.

          • Thing is, once the Com tanks had been swept away the Americans for example found the Sherman a better fit for the war than the Pershing, in no small part due to its far better climbing ability.

            Point being that a specific tank being found good in a specific context that in this case frankly had preciously little to do with what most armies actually designed their tanks *for* doesn’t automagically correlate with much anything.

  7. Belton Cooper wasn’t a “mechanic”. He was a Maintenance Officer. Big difference. (Because he probably didn’t do any physical work on the Vehicles). The Sherman might have been a good tank in late 1942, but it showed it’s age as the war went on. There is a grain of truth in what the Sherman haters like Cooper said even if they embellish it out of all proportions. You can call the Sherman “war winning” but others will point at things like Aircraft Carriers, B-17/24/29s, hordes of Soviet conscripts, Hitler’s blunders, the T-34, etc, etc, as the “true war winners”. So yeah, don’t think the Sherman was an awesome vehicle. It had help.

    The rest of it except the part about the Waffen-SS sucking ass (as they did) is just lame Wehraboo bashing.

    • > So yeah, don’t think the Sherman was an awesome vehicle. It had help.
      And it had numbers, really big numbers. And fuel, too.

      • yeah but it being easy and fast to produce is also an advantage of this vehicle. Just like T-34.
        That being said u are right of course because it was not the tansk alone but from a point on the allies basically had air superiority nearly all the time and an overwhelming advantage in numbers (basically everywhere, infantry, tanks, planes …)
        So i think its impossible to say that what tank was superior to its counterparts. Nearly all people think of the T-34 as being supperor to the Panzer4 wich is true for the most part. But late war versions of the Panzerkampfwagen 4 actually held their grould pretty damn good against it as they were upgunned, uparmored, and had a bigger engine ( its just like ingame the Pz4 has 80mm of frontal armor while the T-34 has somewhere around 75mm of effective armor)

    • Belton Cooper’s unit also most likely never fought a single Panther or Tiger in the Normandy campaign, the period that he registers most of his complaints in (at most 3rd Armored Division fought a few of them in minor skirmishes). Whatever his position in the US Army, he was creating fabrications almost out of whole cloth.

  8. Revisionist history at its finest. While the combat effectiveness of German troops and armor is probably exaggerated, the activities of the combatant nations (nevermind accounts of actual combat vetetans) during the war do not bear out many of these supposed “facts.”

    • When you use trains to move Panthers for just 25km, in order to save stress on your shitty final drive, you see that something failed there… they were not necessarily the worst out there, but their reputation is greatly exaggerated.

      • I think that the problem is that a lot of what is written in this article pretty much shows the German tanks as useless pieces of crap with miserable armour and guns.
        The Tiger being penetrated by the 75mm is a test on the sides, so it doesn’t really surprise me. Same with the T-34-85 penetrating the Tiger II. It’s on the side. No surprise there. But none of those is clarified in these questions, you have to go and read the articles.

        “Even the meek 85 mm gun on the T-34-85 was capable of dealing a fatal blow to it at 300 meters. The Wikipedia article for the Tiger II has a very nice photo of a Tiger II with a 17 pounder hole in the front.
        Ironically, the only weapon in Soviet tests that was consistently incapable of penetrating the front of the Tiger II was the Panther’s gun, even with APCR.”

        The way it’s written, referencing frontal penetrations twice after referring to the 85mm gun penetrating at 300 meters, it makes you think that it also penetrated at the front, which it didn’t. There’s no “false” information (or at least anything I or most of us can rebuke with proper evidence), it’s just that the way it’s written, IMO, makes them sound worse than they really were.

        • This is how propaganda works. Take some truth, then mix it up with lie so it would appear that lie becomes truth.

        • Indeed. If I recall lots of tanks (Shermans especially) had guns that could easily handle the Tiger… By sneaking up and shooting it in the ass. I’m not saying that the posted info is wrong, I’d just like to see some better wording and more specifics, as this kind of implies that a T-34-85 could kill a Tiger from the front.

          As for the Panther… Well, I’m one of those guys, I’s ashamed to admit it but I am to a degree. When you have a tank like that which has so much potential, stop wasting time on stupid wonder-weapons! There’s no reason for effort to be used on the E series, Maus, Lowe, or whatever you want when you have a perfectly good and perfectly upgradable design that just needs some kinks worked out in production and design. Work on better steel for the armor, improve reliability on the drive-train, come up with a road wheel system that doesn’t need to be defrosted every morning because of mud when you’re fighting against General Winter in Russia, and just streamline the design to get rid of all that classic German complexity.

          So in other words I want a Panther as made by America or the Soviets.

          Well is that really so wrong?!

          • you don’t say what kind of Sherman is killing what type of tiger ( same with the t34-85)
            a 76 or 85 could reasonably pen a tiger1 from the front and a tiger two from the side at close-ish range.

            an allied panther? closest thing i can think of is a centurion :P

      • That “17 pounder” penetration was actually made by germans with another King Tiger. The penetrated Tiger 2 was broken down and they were losing the area for the allies so they decided to test the guns on that tank in case some would be captured by the enemy and used against germans.

    • Their tanks weren’t particularly good is the point; most especially the Panther and the Tiger. The Germans fought very well for the most part, but it wasn’t because they excelled in tank vs tank warfare. Most of Allied tank losses was due to towed anti-tank guns, not due to Panzers.

      • I prefer facts to opinions:
        During the first four months of 1944 anti tank guns were responsible for about 24% of Soviet tank losses – German tanks (40%) and assault guns 21 (%) accounted for 61%.

        • I’ve seen that study before, and it doesn’t actually mean what you think.

          The reason is because that study was made by German observers who were observing recovered wrecks. By definition, a recovered wreck is one wherein the Germans retained possession of the battlefield – usually when their tanks counter-attacked.

          By contrast, actual Allied loss reports show just the opposite – losses due to enemy tanks form the extreme minority of tank losses. Even Panzerfausts were accounting for more losses by late 1944 (at least among the Western Allies).

          • This makes sense, as both Allied tanks and German towed and man-portable AT weapons were present on far more battlefields than the comparatively scarce German AFVs.

  9. You keep using the word fact when you should be using opinion. Obviously every retard is allowed to post here.

      • So suddenly, propaganda papers are archive documents – in soviet Russia, everything is possible

        • Suddenly everything coming from SU is propaganda, everything coming from american and germany is pure facts… right…

          • If it says that ze german tanks are ze super mega über stronk tanks, than of course its a fact, how can u doubt that?

      • Frequently, they are. Just because a document is in a government archive somewhere does not magically make it factual. *NO* single document is ever authoritative. Proof will always require multiple sources, and this goes for the myths and the facts. You do well to explode the myths EE, but you do stray a little far into creating your own at times.

  10. Oh see who is barking its EnsignExpendable, our beloved soviet propaganda komissar, keep up the work saying every german achievement is a lie, so much butthurt are you just jealous.

    You have all a false reflection of wwII cause of this stupid game, there were no mighty >IS3-ISX, T54/62, american T-28/29/30/32/34/95, M103, T110EX, british chieftain, centurion or high tier french tanks who fought in wwII.

    Just only BTs, T34s, IS-IS2, Su-76/85/100/122/152, ISU, Shermans, Hellcats, M8 Greyhound, Wolverine, Jackson, Churchills, Crusaders, Cromwells, Archers and a lot of other papertanks who suffered a lot of losses against such an underpowered and weak warmachinery of one nation, the germans, yeah that makes sense at all being better as a german with own shitty tanks against a lot of more tanks in numbers of the other nations which were all superior sure…

    I knew it that u have to freak out when u rarely read something good about germans on this blog u have to float it with soviet propaganda and all this BS, for example like Staudegger, german gunsights, innovative designs like pantehr who influenced a lot of post ww2 tanks of french, german and others till the late 20th centuary, oh and guess who is bulding the guns vor Abrams…

    • What tanks were influenced by German designs of WWII other than the AMX-50 series, which turned out to be failures?

      • Beat me. I saw Daigensui making a similar claim in a thread about the E-50, but besides being “poetic” (as she called it) she didn’t go into the details.
        Honestly I see much more T-54 influence on T-62 and even T-72/90 than Panther’s influence on Leopard 1 or Leopard 2.

        • because T55 is a postwar design and soviets always had their own ideas on how to build a tank.
          Russian tanks are always little in height, less weight, little turret
          And just because theyresemble each other doesnt mean that their internals are the same

          All allies studied captured german tanks and i hardly doubt that they would admit that parts of their tanks are inspired by german tanks. Maybe they did maybe they didnt.

          Ohh and look after seing the german Stg44 the Soviets suddenly inveted the AK47.
          Of course they werent inspired by ZE GERMANS it was all due to tem being super smart….
          They just swaped out the mechanism (similar to the SKS if im not mistaken) but the basic idea for an assault rifle was copied from the Stg44. Michail Kalashnikov can denie that all he wants …

          • Loled at STG-44 AK connection.
            Assault rifle idea is basically putting shorter/smaller round into semi-automatic rifle and making it fire in either bursts or full auto. First gun designed in such idea in mind? Fiodorov rifle 1917. Russian as fuck, apart from Japanese ammo(6,5x50mm see – smaller/shorter round, in earlier version there was some “other” 6,5mm round developed especially for it, but I guess they wanted something that was used more commonly).
            As the AK-47 mechanism differs a lot from MP-43/STG-44 it’s hardly possible that it’s copycat.

        • The various developments of the E-series were utilized in the development of the Swiss tanks, which was put to use in the development of Leopard 1. Basically, while the actual design features itself might not have made it into the Leopard 1, the various influences and lessons learned would help make Leopard 1 be the great tank it became.

      • All MBT’s, beacause panther could be seen as a first MBT (decent armor + decent mobility + decent firepower for all roles)

        • No decent mobility . It is heavier than the IS tank and had very poor strategic mobility .
          MBT only means that you unify the roles of Heavy , medium and light tanks . So a tank qualifies as a MBT if there is no heavy tank used in the armys doctrine . So the USSR did not have an MBT until the T10 was retired nor the USA while they had the m103 .
          By your metric the late model pz3 , m4 ,t 34 was a far better MBTs when they came out .

    • One thing I was thinking about lately is how many times I have read books or internet posts that describe the late war German tanks, particularly the Panther and the Tiger 2 as having a great deal of influence on post-war tank design. The more I have thought about this, the less I agree with it. In fact, I would argue that the Panther and Tiger 2 were pretty much developmental dead ends with few aspects of their design being adopted in post war vehicles. These two vehicles were influential only in the very general sense that they raised the bar in terms of what a medium or a heavy tank could weigh. Their existence prompted the allied countries to develop heavier vehicles with the appropriate armor and firepower to match the late war German “cats”, but they did not actually borrow many design features from them.

      To prove my point, lets look at the particular design features of “the cats” (Panther and Tiger). The layout of the tanks was very conventional, with three men in the turret and two in the hull. This was pretty much

      the norm for most WW2 tanks. Post war designs trended toward the elimination of the second hull crewman, the Russians doing this first with the IS2 design and the Americans and British following suit later with the M-48 and Centurion. So we can see, the “cats” were not ahead of their time in this regard. From an automotive standpoint, the cats were quite conventional as well, with a gasoline engine mounted in the rear and the transmission in front. This layout configuration was quite common, the USA used it in the M3-M4 line of medium tanks and the M2-M5 line of light tanks and so did the Italians, the Japanese and the Czechs. The British and Russians had already figured out the advantages of having a rear mounted transmission and made that standard on most of their models. The Russians and the Japanese had made the move to diesel power packs for tanks before the war started. Diesel engines with rear mounted transmissions would become the norm in most post-war tank designs, two features absent on the Panther and Tiger.

      In regards to suspension, the cats did feature torsion bars, which would become the most popular form of suspension for tanks in the post war era. However, torsion bars were not unique to these vehicles. The Germans had already fielded thousands of Panzer and Stug 3′s which had torsion bar suspensions. The Russians had torsion bars in the KV 1 which appeared in 1940. By 1944 the US had made the switch to torsion bars with the introduction of the M-26 Pershing, M-18 tank destroyer and the M-24 Chaffee light tank. So we can see that the use of torsion bars on the cats was not a novel design feature. The one feature unique to the cats that no one copied for a production vehicle after the war was their system of overlapping road wheels. The German system of overlapping road wheels may have provided for a comfortable ride, but they also made maintenance difficult, added extra weight to the vehicle, and had the tendency to get clogged with snow and mud in cold weather conditions. The only post war tank designs that revisited the idea of overlapping or interleaved road wheels was the AM-50 French design of the immediate post war era, it never went into production.

      In terms of firepower, the Panther and Tiger 2 featured very high velocity cannons of either 75 or 88mm in bore with a length to bore ratio around 70. This ratio is significantly higher than that of most postwar tank designs that have ranged mostly in the 40-60 range. We must assume that post war designers found that cannons with caliber ratios above 70 were not optimal. German armor piercing ammunition was not fundamentally different from the allies, both sides primarily relying on solid shot capped armor piercing rounds (German rounds sometimes had a small explosive charge which western allied rounds did not.) The most innovative German tank cannon design was the “squeeze bore” barrel which tapered down to a smaller diameter at the muzzle of the cannon. The squeeze bore gun required rounds made from tungsten steel which was in short supply, so it was not used in significant numbers on any German AFV. The real advance in armor piercing ammunition came from the British who invented the discarding sabot round for their 6 and 17 pounder guns. The discarding sabot has gone on to become the primary kinetic penetrating round used in most post war tanks guns. In that regard, its safe to say the British 17 pounder was a more influential design than the Kwk 42 of the Panther or the Kwk 43 of the Tiger 2.

      Interestingly, the only country who’s AFV designs show a degree of influence from the Panther and Tiger 2 were the first generation post war tanks from France. In the immediate post war period, France operated a battalion of captured Panthers, so these vehicles may have been used as inspiration for their post war tank designers. The most obvious influence in the French designs was the main cannon on their AMX 13 light tank which has been described as “a copy” of the Panter’s Kwk 42. Somewhat ironically, this cannon would also see service in the Israeli M-50 upgraded Sherman tank. The French AMX 50 has a hull shape and road wheels that are very reminiscent of the Panther and Tiger 2, although it does not feature a front mounted transmission.

      The Panther and the King Tiger tanks set new standards for firepower and armor protection when they were introduced in 1943 and 1944. That is not in dispute, nor is the fact that these tanks forced the allies to reevaluate their own designs to counter the powerful German vehicles. In that sense, yes, the Panther and King Tiger were influential. However, these two vehicles were in many ways conventional German designs of their era. Many of the aspects of their designs did not become common in post war designs, and some particular features, such as overlapping road wheels, were never used in post war production vehicles at all. Therefore, I think it is safe to say that late war German tank designs, while impressive for their power and size, were not so much the forebears of post war tank design but more of an offshoot (and dead end) on the evolutionary tank design tree.

  11. I agree with the myths, but some of the facts are bullshits as well…just from an opposite sides of the barricades

  12. “Consensus: the gun sights are the best in the world. Incomparable to any currently known worldwide or currently developed in America.”

    Source : Your ass. most of those “myth” are actually fact. especially the Russian one.

  13. ” Myth: Shermans were not meant to engage enemy tanks, and were supposed to run away whenever they saw them.”
    How does an idiotic myth like this even get started? Yes, ‘merica designed and mass-produced this tank, and outfitted it with a gun that fired armor-piercing rounds JUST so it could run away when another tank appeared.

    Seriously, someone explain this to me, it’s lacking context or something.

    “Myth: German tanks were superior to all of their contemporaries even in the early war, and the Germans scoffed at whatever they faced in battle.”
    facepalm.jpg

    • That myth was notoriously started because of the Tank Destroyer Doctrine, which, like any American doctrine, was largely ignored by Americans themselves.

      • It was also repeated and regurgitated by Belton Cooper and Stephen Ambrose everytime they could, mainly to pander to US Armor veterans.

  14. Funny how much WW2 knowledge I gained as a result of playing WOT.

    Anyway, its funny how people here get mad, nazibois only want to remember Tigers killing tons of farmer crewed T-34′s. Can haz some KV-1 vs PzIII & early PzIV soviet propaganda?

    BTW I started playing with German tenks coz I thought theyre elite and epic after watching some history channel shit.

    • You ignorant its cause they are nerfed to death and soviet shit is buffed to heaven in compare plus magical armor and antigrav engines, “oh look this tanks has far more armor and has far less hp but look its faster and more agile what kind of sorcery is this?!”

      *doublefacepalm*

      • “oh look this tanks has far more armor and has far less hp but look its faster and more agile what kind of sorcery is this?!”
        LOL it’s not sorcery it is just good design . When you are able to have heavy tanks lighter than the opponents medium tanks while having better armor than their heavy tanks you are doing something right .
        Nerfed …Like how all the German tanks get uptiered guns that were never installed just to compete … aww so much nerfing . Cry more wheraboo

    • TBH German heavy tanks in WOT are over-tiered, making them very good in firepower but not as good in defense.
      Shifting both trees down one tier using new tier X (E-100 ausf B and Maus II) would cure the problem while giving use german tanks in proper context using their historical guns…

      • On that I agreed back in the day when I was playing Germans and QQing on WG forums, that way they can also use more historical guns and stuff.
        *thumbs up*

  15. While the idea of debunking WW2 myths is a good one, implementation is on a grade school level, with bias and concealed rage pouring out of pretty much every sentence.

    @Silentstalker, I respect and applaud your decision to give different people a chance to get their 5 minutes of “internetz glory, zomg!!1111one” but truth be told: FTR is too good WoT-related blog/page to be used for this kind of butthurt posting about WW2 “myths and facts”.

    It was not all black and white, it was not “ze Germans were the stronkerest tankerers with overstronk tenks”, Tigers was not invincible, neither was Panther or Tiger II, but cmon dude, you know better than to let this bs being posted here (Propaganda entry was another one, but I decided to let it go, despite calling every Axis soldier a (filthy) Nazi, which is simply too much, even for EnsignHistoryRewritingwannabe.

    TL;DR: rage, bias and bs in this article:
    http://media.heavy.com/media/2013/05/damn.jpg

    • I do have to agree with this one. It’s always nice to hear german fanboys cry when you state solid facts, but the implementation was second rate drivel at best this time. EE can write much better and more interesting articles.

      • it was just trolling, not “myth debunking”. the whole intention is to get “the nazis” up in arms. pathetic.

  16. like others said, panther and overall germans look like shit in this article. cracking armour, shitty transmission, gun worse than t34-85, sights allegedly worse than russian…. ofc i know it is because of myths “panther best tank ever”, if there would be opposite myth, we would read now about good suspension and decent frontal armour, IR sights etc.
    here are covered only some disadvantages of tanks considered OP, not their performance as whole.

    • If we’re talking about overall losses… it pays to remember that German tank losses nearly tripled when the Panther was introduced.

      The Panther was simply an awful, awful design that made Germany’s problems worse, not better. In fact I have yet to see a single major battle wherein the Panther defeated Allied armor while significantly outnumbered. By contrast, the much-maligned Sherman with 75mm gun has at least two major battles wherein the Panthers outnumbered them at least 3:1 and yet still won anyway. Resoundingly.

      Look up Arracourt. That battle is much more indicative of how “good” the Panther is.

    • Active-IR night sights were pretty much a flash-in-the-pan experiment of very limited scope and fuck-all consequence except inasmuch it may have hastened Soviet R&D of such systems after they looked over the stuff recovered from those Panthers they shot to bits in was it Hungary? The US military was already field-testing the technology in smallarms scale in the Pacific.

      As for “good suspension”, surely you jest? The interleaved and later, less PIA overlapping roadwheel system was adopted due to shortages of decent rubber for the rims, in order to reduce wear and tear. That it turned out to give a fairly smooth ride over bumpy terrain was a nice bonus but of absolutely no consequence given that lacking proper stabilisers of any kind firing on the move was Right Out in the German doctrine. (By the by the improved HVS suspension of the “Easy Eight” apparently had a similar bonus, which actually might have been of some utility too given the standard fitting of v-stabs into US tanks.)
      It also occurs to me that were the overlapping system of genuine utility in terms of on-the-move accuracy you’d expect it to have turned up on at least *some* early Cold War designs which were still working the kinks out of the gyrostabilisers…

      As for armour, hah. That just produced a “medium” tank of gross tonnage similar to a damn IS-2 but *still* armed with just a 75mm gun. Pretty poor bang for your buck.

  17. Stalinboos gonna hate. Nothing new here. They will do anything to justify nerfing the piss out of German tanks. Funny how the people who actually fought against Germany say the complete opposite of these Internet kiddies.

  18. Myth: The Germans enjoyed unprecedented success in Europe due to the “Blitzkrieg” doctrine.
    Fact: Blitzkrieg was never a doctrine. Zinegata explored the topic here.

    ^

    Good read. However, there are no sources linked to his posts. I believe him based on the usage of words but without sources, It can be made up. Until then I take his words as “believable but not facts” but it’s seem more logical then what I used to know.

    • It’s a little hard to cite every single German field manual and show that virtually all of them don’t use the word blitzkrieg.

      If you want a succint summary of the First World War however, including the German General Staff institution which developed the mobile warfare doctrines (as well as the ill-covered Eastern Front campaigns) of World War 1, which were then applied to World War 2 – I suggest Keegan’s single-volume summary.

  19. Daigensui-. German optics were not a matter of magnification. It was a matter of clarity and light transmission. In bright light most sights with the same magnification were about equal. But when it came to seeing in dim light Germans sights were in a class of their own.

    “It was while they were in Overloon that the Coldstreams acquired their Panther tank. It was found, abandoned in a barn, nicknamed Cuckoo and taken into service. The crew appointed to the German tank clearly liked it but if one feature appealed to them more than any other it was the superb quality of the sights. Germany had always been noted as a source for high quality optics such as binocular and camera lens but it is clear that high standards were maintained right through to the end of the war. British manufacturers, by comparison, never seem to have achieved these standards at any time during the conflict.”

    Good quality WWII Russian armor and shell steel? The CIA disagrees.
    Check out another CIA analysis of Russian armor and welding.
    http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD011426

    • “Critical surfaces such as chambers, forcing cones, breech
      ring recesses for the blocks, and rifling were well machined and had
      surfaces comparable to those found in American equipment.”

      Such a scathing critique of Soviet equipment.

    • The IJA noted that in terms of clarity and light transmission, German optics were of no noticeable quality when compared to Japanese optics. Plus, you’re comparing the WORST optic manufacturers the British, to the Germans?

      • It’s easy to show Daigensui wrong. Here you go junior.
        Citation
        “German Technical Aid to Japan”
        http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/search/searchterm/N14217

        Optical equipment
        Optical glass has been the subject of a close association between Japan and Germany over a period of years. In the days of surface blockade running, extensive purchase of optical glass were made through ordinary commercial channels; concurrently, during 1942~43, the Japanese Army was buying and shipping optical glass for specific military purposes. With the end of surface blockade running in the spring of 1943, the familiar pattern of Japanese purchasing policy on a new basis was reproduced in respect to optical material. Through 1944 the Army and Navy took charge to an increasing degree, although Mitsubishi continued to negotiate for, and collect data on, glass manufacturing techniques. Particularly suitable for submarine cargo, optical glass retained a high priority for transport to the Far East.

        Well, maybe the German optics weren’t any better than the Japanese optics was because they were made the same way with the same material.

  20. And again this “anti myth crap”.

    Im always asking myself wy the russians, usa, brits, france etc. needed 5 fucking years and 20million
    death soldiers to stop a single country…

    • Because they didn’t fight them all at the same time, and Germany’s economy was actually three times more powerful than the Soviet Union in many vital war industries such as steel production.

      When Germany started fighting everyone at the same time by 1943, it showed just how much of a hollow shell German “successes” really were.

      • Oh yeah ? – you are ridiculous – nowadays every general worldwide would take some german WWII wehrmacht or even better SS divisions with a kiss – and rape all those modern day so called “elite units”.

        • LOL, no. The German Army of World War 2 – most especially the overrated SS – are pretty weak compared to modern armies.

          The German Army of WW2 was mostly a conscript army. Those who weren’t conscripts were retards who believed their blonde hair and blue eyes made them bullet proof.

          Actual professional armies do not discriminate based on race.

        • Wow! That was a total retard statement Mr. Anonymous.

          I do think that the artice makes it look like the German tanks were inferior to the allied tanks, while this illudes IMHO (yes, opinion) to certain aspects of German tanks being not as good as say Soviet tanks (reliability), however on other ends they were better (for example being able to effectively engage enemy tanks at long(er) ranges with a better rate of success.

          I think it’s a bit of a pitty you chose to only debunk stuff “vs Germany”, but not the other way around except for allied nations being better at certain things or some of those allied nations not being as harsh on their own troops as maybe previously though.

          I liked the article fairly, but it seems very, very onesided, maybe actually debunk some stuff in which say the Soviets were perceived as superior, but proves out to be a myth?

        • Actually odds are very good the Wehrmacht would get its ass roundly and unceremoniously handed to itself by any present-day conscript army. The volunteer ones might have to revert to conscription in order to get enough boots to the ground, but same story otherwise.

    • As it happens the fact that the Germans didn’t get stuck into a rather lopsided rerun of WW1 in ’40 basically boils down to the French supreme commander having had his brain surgically replaced with the Idiot Ball, ie. sheer luck. Similarly their initial success in the East was basically down to the Soviets’ domestic disharmony and resultant rampant inanity – had the Red Army had something of a clue in ’41 the Wehrmacht most likely wouldn’t have made it past the former Polish eastern border.

      As it happens Hitler’s reserves of gambling fortune weren’t quite sufficient to veto reality, which came calling once the opposition got their act together.

  21. Good job bro but it looks like you debunked some myths while you erected some new myths i.e. Doyle got different view on quality of german steel at the end of WW2 and about Panthers reliability.

    • Yeah. I’ve read a bunch of Spielberger’s books, and honestly, while naturally stuff like Tiger and Tiger II being invincible are bullcrap, they just weren’t as bad as they are being portrayed here. And honestly, tests may show that the armour is easily penetrable, but a test is an isolated experience, that can’t honestly replicate a combat situation.

      • Combat situations actually show that armor is most irrelevant – most of the time just getting hit (even non-penetrating) was enough to get a crew to call it a day.

      • If a given gun fucks up a specimen of a given tank in test shots at X range, then by what logic exactly do you propose the same thing won’t happen in combat?

  22. This post is some total load of allied fanboy propaganda BS. Where is the myth that German tanks were not reliable and broke down all the time?

    Tiger II can be frontally penetrated by 85mm guns at 300 meters? When was a tiger II frontally penetrated IN combat, by ANY gun? Oh yeah, NEVER.

    Soviet optics being the best quality sourced to a -single- quote at Aberdeen? Right.

    Panther G final drives do not last for only 150 km. Maybe the first Ausf A models deployed at Kursk.

    Germans having padded kill ratios (shared). Like the allies didn’t? Look at allied air victories for instance, especially in the Pacific the Americans were especially overcounting.

    It’s perfectly reasonable to say the Germans had an advantage being largely on the defensive, but to surmise that their kill-loss ratio was not impressive approaches the realm of total absurd history revisionism. Even the humble StuG III’s achieved over a 3:1 ratio on average.

    So much BS nonsense with the OP I could be ranting all night.

      • it’s almost as if ratios are indicative of a battlefield weapon’s effectiveness or something

        • Ah yes, tell me more about how the most simplified statistics imaginable unlock all the secrets of high-intensity conflict.

    • Also, the 150km lifespan of the final drives? Postwar French experience, operating AUSF G Panthers. That is pretty far removed from “the first Ausf A models at Kursk” (which is complete bunk, the first variant was the D, the A didn’t exist at the time – obviously you know nothing about the tank).

      • @Also, the 150km lifespan of the final drives? Postwar French experience, operating AUSF G Panthers.

        Bother yourself and read that Chieftain’s article, sentence “Panthers, even the latest models, were full of mechanical issues” is far from original conclusion of chieftain (and this is far from which we can read in “The French post-war experience” in metioned article). Besides frenches wasn’t original users of Panther and without proper supervision of German mechanics (which lacks of course in German Army too – i.e. during routes when scattered forces were trying to do some unaceptional movements) Panther could be broken down after only 40 kms.

        • The article however demonstrates the extreme upper limit of a Panther’s operabilty before breaking down, which is 150km due to the weak final drive.

          Again, there is a reason why German tank losses tripled when the Panther became a mainline German tank, and the Panther never being a sound mchine is a big contributor to this.

          • ya, im sure it has nothing to do with the fact the panther was deployed in 1943 and germany was in a rapidly deteriorating position

            • It really didn’t. Germany was still able to launch strategic offensives in 1943, and yet the loss rate went up tremendously. The issue is the bad automative reliability of the tank; not the situation it was put in.

            • i’m referring to your comment of tank losses being tripled. to insinuate the germans would have lost *less* tanks by building *more*, weaker panzer 4′s is certainly one of the more asinine things i’ve read tonight

            • They would, in fact, have lost less tanks if they had built “more weaker tanks”.

              The reason for this is that the vast majority of tank losses are actually recoverable. Most German Panzer IVs and Stugs had been “knocked out” several times but kept coming back. Why do you think the Stug III was still among the most common German AFVs by 1945 even though they supposedly stopped making them in 1943? (to be replaced by the Stug IV)

              The Panther was horribly difficult to recover, being 50% heavier than the Panzer IV and having no real recovery vehicle. And no, the Bergentiger doesn’t count – the damn thing breaks down almost as often as the tanks it’s supposed to recover.

      • I got confused, because A comes before D you would think it was made first

        though mixing up panther variants isn’t quite as dumb as saying kill ratios are irrelevant

        • Your “mixup” demonstrates precisely how much knowledge you have on the subject of German armour, which is to say, none. You are in no position to call anybody else dumb.

          Maybe next time you try and pretend like you know what you’re talking about, you should at least do a quick search to make sure you’re naming the right variant?

    • >Even the humble StuG III’s achieved over a 3:1 ratio on average.
      In a defensive war that thing was more cost effective than any crap Hitler ordered his engineers to make heavier, too bad defence became an issue for Germany because of… Germany starting (yet another) war.

      • The Stug achieved a mostly verified high kill ratio because the Stug was the best German armored vehicle of the war.

        It was better than the Panther and Tiger combined. Even if you believe the stupid SS fanfiction about Tiger kill rates.

        Case in point: The US Army lost 600 Shermans in the Normandy Campaign. Virtually none were lost to Panthers or Tigers. Every single Sherman lost by the US Army to an enemy armored vehicle was lost due to a Stug or an equivalent assault gun.

    • Because the French only had Panther A tanks in their arsenals after the war, am I right? The 150km final drive statistic was given by the French army from post war, which obviously had Ausf G tanks. Also, with the Tiger II invincible myth, there is a picture of a Tiger II on wikipedia, which you wehraboos love to quote from with a hole on its frontal turret from a 17pdr APDS round, which was able to penetrate about ~210mm of armor at 500m. Also, for ground forces, Germans count irrecoverable losses as losses when the Soviets count out of action as a loss. The difference being that the Germans had to have a tank deep into enemy territory to be considered a loss or an ammo rack explosion where the Soviets would count being stuck in the mud as a loss since the tank was out of action. An example of that would be when on one day, the Germans lost over 100 tanks in France. Why? The allies overran a tank repair depot.

      • what a dumb comment

        I’m sure if the french thought the panther drive systems were so terrible they wouldn’t have copied it to a TEE on all of their postwar designs.

        The picture that all the ‘murica tardos so frequently like to reference of a KT with shots thru its front turret face were most likely taken after the tank was abandoned and at point blank range. There is ZERO evidence to support that those penetrations were made in-combat and the catalyst for knock-out.

        What was the tiger IIs kill-loss ratio? 10:1? most losses being mobility losses (no fuel, not drive train failures sorry).

        But yes, the tiger II was overengineered piece of trash that was too expensive and exhausted so many resources. Germany would have been better off mass producing Stug IIIs and Panzer IVs. WITH NOBODY TO CREW THEM, a fact always glanced over by idiotic allied apologists. Quality over quantity in tank design was necessary due to a pure lack of manpower and skilled operators. The luftwaffe for example had hordes of empty planes on the ground with no pilots (or fuel) to use them.

        • Even if replaced 1:1, it was better to have a Panzer IV or Stug than a Panther. Because those actually worked and were relatively easy to recover.

          50% of Panthers “captured” by the Allies in Normandy had broken final drives. Think about it. Half your tank park wiped out by a faulty final drive.

          • Wow, HOW microscopic is your brain exactly?

            Panthers being captured that were most likely immobile to begin with have a high chance of having a broken final drive = all Panthers in German control had same ratio of broken final drives?

            It’s almost as if a broken final drive was the reason the tanks were abandoned + captured

            Just checked your stats though, not surprised, total walnut brain. ZERO basic reasoning skills.

            Your statement is equivalent to “most german weapons found on the ground by allies had little ammo” in which you deduce “the germans had little ammo” without realizing why the weapons were abandoned in the first place. Get a brain.

        • “I’m sure if the french thought the panther drive systems were so terrible they wouldn’t have copied it to a TEE on all of their postwar designs. ”

          They didn’t. Or can you name a SINGLE example?
          Stop throwing bullshit onto my computer screen please, else I’ll have to start billing you for the cleaning.

    • Everyone had padded kill rates. The difference is that Allied kill rates were examined and corrected after the war. German kill rates were never put under such scrutiny.

      Moreover, the vast majority of German “kills” were against helpless civilians in the Soviet Union anyway. They killed at least two civilians for every combatant; and yet these non-combatats are invariably counted by the idiot “Kill rate makes me right” crowd.

  23. About allies having plenty of guns that were capable of dealing with Tigers …
    Its for a reason the Tiger had a Kill/death ratio of 18/1 on eastern front – western front and africa are worse but sadly im not sure anymore about the exact numbers)

    That migh have been true under testconditions but under real ballteconditions the Tiger was superior to any allied tank but the pershing wich was designed to be the “Tigerhunter”
    And claiming that the Tiger 2s front wasnt all that strong is insulting the memories of our great ancestors who fought hard and in many cases gave their lives to give others the opportunity to flank the damn thing … or in my case build the tank

    Im not trying to defend or glorify the german craftmanship or whatever but its a matter of fact that no allied tank was equal to the Tiger 2s performance as a heavy tank.
    Even this one incident with the superpershing can be doubt to be a fair fight because at that time the germans had to conserve the expensive and slower to produce APCR shells while the pershings could fire APCR all whenever they want. Also as a one time event its not represantiv at all.

    • The Tiger kill-death ratio in the East is total nonsense; the wartime Wermacht intelligence routinely discounted half of them, and post-war verification shows that the units the Tigers supposedly obliterated did not even exist.

      Classic example is Karl Korner supposedly destroying 39 enemy tanks (including a number of IS-2s) with his Tiger II in one engagement. The problem? No single Soviet army lost 39 tanks that day. You have to total the losses from six seperate Soviet armies to get to that total.

      Even worse, the Soviet Army that was closest to Korner’s location was not even equipped with T-34s or IS-2s. It was equipped with Shermans.

      Virtually every single “one tank fights many” story by the SS is a fabrication when examined under close scrutiny. The only confirmed one is Wittman at Villers-Bocage, where he killed 7 tanks but was creditted with 20 by his SS superiors (20 was the actual number of British tanks lost to to Wittman’s entire battalion – which BTW was also annihilated in that battle).

      • Also: Ambrose and Cooper trying to bloat your ancestor’s memory by claiming that it was so hard for them to fight superior German taks is PRECISELY the sort of lies they like peddling. Books about how great the Greatest Generation is sell very well.

  24. germans tanks were not perfect, but this writer makes it sound like he’d rather be in a t-34 than in a tiger 2.

    article should be renamed:making more ww2 myths

        • That’d be FAR preferable to believing in the urgent necessity of exterminating a few hundred million people on racial grounds, yes.

          Though if you think *Communism* had fuck-all to do with the average Soviet trooper’s “Why I Fight” thing you’re a fucking retard.

      • And this is pretty much the core reason of fuss surrounding your articles. Beliefs should be kept aside, since, inevitably, neutrality suffers…

    • So basicly you believe in fighting for a tyrant that wanted to control all of europe and cared nothing for how much it cost? Okay good to know.

      • Better than “believe in fighting for a tyrant that wanted to control all of europe, cared nothing for how much it cost AND exterminate hundreds of millions of people just because they’re not Germans”.

        • Which is exactly the same stalin did but he didnt exterminate them just because they`re not Germans he did it because “insert random thing”.
          Yes Stalin was fucked up he did not need a reason to kill you.

          • On the plus side with him you could try to get a stay of execution with sufficiently convincing groveling, or try to survive the GULAG (as most inmates did). With the Nazis? Not really, in their books you were inalterably marked for death by the circumstances of your *birth*.

            If you can’t tell the difference between the two I must inform you the Nazis would have killed you, too, on grounds of being mentally deficient and hence a threat to the future well-being of the race.

      • Never said that fighting for hitler was any better. Both were really awful reasons to fight for. And openly saying you believe in fighting for any of them makes you a really stupid dangerous extremist in my eyes. So good job to EE for managing that.

        • Fighting to defend your country from an enemy bent on your extermination is ” a real stupid extremisim i your eyes ” . Are you fuckin retarded ?

          • Oh, wow… yup because that was all that stalin did…. You might want to get back to the history books.

            • …and however bad he may have been inasmuch ANY Slav, Jew or other “untermensch” between the Atlantic and the Urals was concerned the Nazis were orders of magnitude WORSE, for the rather simple reason they basically wanted to kill them all.
              Period.
              Fuck the regime, as far as the Red Army grunts were concerned what they were fighting for was the continued existence of themselves and everyone and everything they held dear. Which was also the chord the propaganda machinery played for motivation.

            • Stalin never cared for the jews either. Why the fuck do people think you have to support either one of these monsters? Stalin was right up there with mr H in starting this WW2 thing. And according to their fine inscriptions they literally were fighting for stalin that cared little for anyone but himself, everyone else could die if he achieved his goals and it would be acceptable.

            • Somebody doesn’t understand symbolism worth fuck, or the detail Soviet propaganda quite naturally and predictably did its level best to turn Stalin into a living icon of patriotic resistance against the vile invaders. Which was well in keeping with his prewar “Great Helmsman” official image too when you think about it.

              One also notes that whatever his personal prejudices may have been Stalin could never be bothered to make an official policy out of, you know, ENTIRELY WIPING JEWS AND POLES OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH. He also wasn’t hellbent on starting another Great War over a pile of spectacularly paranoid “Eighth Grader Disease” fantasies writ large – indeed the second it looked like his opportunistic land-grab in Finland was going to go even more wrong by escalating into a Great Power pissing contest with the Entente he couldn’t agree to a ceasefire fast enough.

            • Well, I’ll just say it one more time, I think it is morally questionable to equate either of their armies ideals to your own. I didn’t want a pissing contest in who is worse since they are both so off the charts evil. Don’t take me wrong hitler was worse, but that doesn’t absolve stalin in any way.

            • “—but that doesn’t absolve stalin in any way.”

              Which was never even remotely topical, nor in any way relevant to the debate.

        • was hitler worse?
          hitler killed 10-12 million non-combatants in his time.
          Stalin killed 30-40 million, trailing behind Chairman Mao’s 40-50 million

          Now don’t get me started on “But stalin didn’t kill a single race, only people that were harmful to the Soviet Union”
          yeah bullsht, he couldn’t care less what race he killed, he killed indiscriminately with or without any reason (read books about him from historians that were peer reviewed).

          in pure statistics, Stalin was worse. But to appease the opposite side, Hitler was also quite cruel.

          What you fight for? pft, from the dawn of man it was for revenge/money/land. you might as well be a crusader saying “I DO DA LORDS WILL LOL”

          • And that’s bullshit for the rather simple reason the SOLE reason Hitler doesn’t top everyone else combined is that the oh-so-terrible Soviets, being terrible spoilsports, didn’t let him kill just about fucking *everybody* between Poland and the Urals. To wit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

            And Mao was mostly catastrophically incompetent rather than actively malign like the other two. The results were duly proportionally ugly given the scale of what he was blundering with.

  25. I’ve said this the last time, and I’ll say it again.

    Wars aren’t fought by weaponry.
    People aren’t killed by weaponry.
    And wars aren’t won/lost by weaponry.
    All those are done by the people using the weapons.

    I don’t get why people argue over bullshit like this.
    Here is a thing about weapons, as long as they’re capable of killing your opponent
    it doesn’t matter how good they are, or how much damage they cause.

    And as for war itself:
    War is lost by the side that makes more mistakes and has worse luck.
    And as for winning… I’ve been to Afghanistan, there is no such thing as winning in war.

    • >And as for winning… I’ve been to Afghanistan, there is no such thing as winning in war.
      That’s only been happening to America since… 1953?

    • quite idiotic to look at it from one side of the perspective.

      better weapons increases the success rate of winning the war
      better weapons kills ppl faster and more efficiently

      see where im going with this?

      • How so?

        The Zulu were defeated by the British empire, but the costs of life on both sides were enormous.
        That’s the Zulu with spears and such against the british army with rifles and cannons.

        Staying with the british, they were still considered one of the greatest nations with the best army when the americans defeated them.

        The Roman Empire was ultimately defeated, but even prior to their demise the roman military
        was defeated again and again even though it’s considered one of the, if not the greatest army of it’s time.

        Or to go into the modern age.
        The Soviets got a bloody nose in Afghanistan, so did anyone else who ever entered that country.

        I get the point you’re trying to make, in a one on one situation the guy inside the tank kills
        the guy with the spear, but that’s not how war works.

        History, both from long ago and right now has shown it time and time again.
        If one side is way superior in terms of technology the other side tries to counter that
        with a respective strategy.

        And lastly, there is no winning in war.
        Years after a war ends everything returns back to normal, a couple hundred years later most people already forgot what the war was about and a thousand years later even historians can only make theories about the war.

        It’s thinking like your’s that makes some people walk on a very thin line.
        Thinking things like “We’re superior in technology! We can defeat them easily! No problems…”

        • You’re confusing winning wars, which is wholly doable, with somehow achieving *perpetual hegemony* which is as much power-fantasy bullshit as any delusion of permanency.

  26. “Fact: Soviet guns do not lack mechanical accuracy, and are occasionally more accurate than their German counterparts.”
    Some do and some don’t.

    “75 mm M2, from the M3 Lee AP shells M61 and M72
    Vertical: 30 cm
    Horizontal: 30 cm”
    “76 mm F-34 gun AP shell Br-350A and Br-350B
    Vertical: 30 cm
    Horizontal: 30 cm”

    Now look at what is posted on the 122mm accuracy shoot.
    At 1000m the small circle is 24cm in radius or .48m in diameter or a 50% zone of vertical 48cm x horizontal 48cm.

    The German 88mm/L71 is 30cm x 50cm at 1000m.
    So what is more accurate?

    Let’s look at the first two guns. How is it that the 75mm M2 and the F-34 are more accurate than the 122mm D-25? The answer is they are not. Whoever posted this has diameters mixed with radii. The F-34 and M2 should probably double the radii to diameter when comparing to German data.

    You plenty of good data but get the context right.

    • I don’t think you can claim that data is in error based on a guess.

      Gun accuracy is only half the story, you need ammo that is the same. Russian ammo was largely pants throughout the war and German ammo quality grew quite variable as the war dragged on. British 17pdr APDS was notoriously inaccurate.
      But I reckon the principle reason the Germans got a reputation for accuracy doesn’t have anything to do with any testing ground accuracy but rather the high velocity of the guns which allow for greater tolerance in errors made in adjusting the gun for range.

      • Or simply because they were better at camouflage procedures, which made the Allied tankers on the receiving end that they were being shot at from much higher ranges.

        Most tank losses actually occured when the engagement range was less than 500 meters. And Germany’s towed AtG crews were very good at holding their fire until the enemy was in killing range.

        • AFAIK that was SOP for AT guns, already because the things for the most part had to be light enough to actually be movable by their crews which obviously tended to mean they lacked the punch to kill enemy tanks at distance, nevermind now from the front. Ofc you *could* build them big and powerful to be capable of that, but such heavy pieces then tended to be effectively immobile without a prime mover and took quite a while to set up…

  27. I think the biggest problem with people on both sides of these arguments is their absolutism. German tanks are either perfect killing machines or awful pieces of junk. Shermans are either war-winners or rolling coffins. Soviet tanks are either futuristic or crude farm machines.

    The truth is always more complicated; all countries and their designs had strengths and weaknesses. To attempt to explain all of these in very short, snarky responses merely encourages myths and generalizations. I feel like a lot of the responses in the article could benefit from a bit more moderation. For example, it’s important to mention that the Tiger II, while it wasn’t invincible, was still incredibly hard to destroy. The one that was knocked out frontally took multiple hits before succumbing to what appears to be a lucky hit from a 17-pounder APDS shell.

    • The Tiger II was one of the least effective vehicles of the war; and it was actually pathetically easy to destroy. At least one was destroyed at Padeborn by firing illumination rounds at it – the White Phosphor having gotten into the engine vents and caused the crew to bail out thinking the tank was on fire.

      You don’t need to penetrate the frontal armor of a tank to knock it out. Armor is not the best guarantee of vehicle survivability. Modern Armor design emphasizes firepower, then mobility, and thirdly armor for a reason.

      • That’s just an anecdote and have nothing to do with the actual tank as it could have been any tank. Check this site for the story about two T-34 getting killed by handgrenades, that doesn’t make that tank bad as it was just a specific incident and not something built into the tank.

        • I saw the hand grenade story. It’s apocryphal.

          Tanks being knocked out by spalling however is VERY common. That’s why despite having five crewmen, and average of only ONE crewman is killed or wounded when a Sherman is “knocked out”. Very few tank kills result in fireworks claiming the whole crew.

  28. srsly this whole post is shallow, generalizes and lacks citations.

    each topic in it self is an essay.

  29. “Myth: Germans had the best optics in the entire war.
    Fact: Not really, just some minor advantages in sight form factors (and not glass quality, like is often said). Daigensui explores the topic here. (Credit: Daigensui)”
    -If you actually read the article so is it clear the optics were quite a lot superior, but you are correct that glass was not the main factor.

    “Myth: Soviet Cold War era armour was abysmal, and the Americans had nothing to fear from it.
    Fact: The CIA disagrees.”
    -Yes, of course we should trust the main propagandist for keeping the cold war running about the danger from the east! Short version, CIA is not the most trustworthy nor an expert on Russion armor.

    • The RAND institute actually supports the idea that Soviet armor was much superior to NATO armor well into the mid 1980s. People keep forgetting what a mess the US armor program was at the time (see the M60 Patton with 152mm gun)

      • The CIA estimates were quite accurate on the T-64 and T-72 Frontal Armour Effectiveness and also the TOW and DRAGON Penetration Values are quite accurate. Tho neither T-64 and T-72 ’0-series’ (not talking about T-72B, T-64BV etc.) are a match against I-TOW and DRAGON II AT-Missiles. Tho the T-90U with NERA etc. might present a very tough nut to western ammunition and AT-Missiles (well, except for the Hellfire and the HOT-3).

        Russians are still quite superior in terms of ATGMs (AT-14 Spriggan, 1400mm Pen @ all ranges anyone? or the Ataka-V?), thats for sure.

        • Well, most estimates tend to give NATO the advantage once the US M1A1 enters the picture. Coincidentally, this is also when Soviet armor development runs into trouble with the largely failed T-80; resulting in the tried and tested T-72 becoming the basis for the T-90 instead.

  30. “Additionally, the armour was of exceptionally poor quality, cracking after non-penetrating hits. (Credit: Jeeps_Guns_Tanks)”
    —-He posted one image and did not substantiate the claim about poor quality armour with any kind of metallurgical examination. The ‘cracking’ issue is duie to a different type of steel plate and multiple hits rather than poor quality necessarily. I did question this on the thread and it was not challenged.
    I think this should have been left out of the ‘myths’——For the unquestionable faults of the Panther the steel quality is unproven for the time being.
    -Vollketten

    • Well, the Western Allies and the Soviets did note (independently of each other, if I recall) as early as 1944 that armour quality of the glacis was quite variable.
      But I agree that implying that it was uniformly bad is inaccurate.

      • That German armor quality was not uniform in any shape or form due to collapsing quality control is likely the closest to the truth of the matter; but this in itself is an indictiment of the quality of German armor.

        Consistency is one of the most important qualities of any industrially produced product.

        • Varied armor quality was true for nearly all sides during the war. For example soviet armor quality collapsed in early 1942, allowing even the 3,7cm Pa.K. to deal with the T-34/KV-1 (Source: several dozen divisional/regimental level German war diaries). The T-34′s that had been knocked out at the third battle of Kharkov in early 1943 had atrocious armor quality when they were examined by the Wehrmacht. (Source: Jentz).

          • Soviets I’d understand – and like I said there is almost certainly a drop in quality in 41 and 42 due to the massive economic dislocation.

            With America however, quality control was far too good to allow this – simply because you need the best level quality control when you’re mass-producing.

  31. Article by same author is not condensed, once again, taking up too much format space on the blog, not allowing one to skip over it.

    • Awww, someone thinks that hiding behind anonymity makes his useless opinion any less blatantly obvious or stupid. How cute.

      • Cute is claiming that soviet postbatlle reports could be more accurate that germans postbattle reports.

        • EE isn’t posting Soviet post-battle results in this article; and to my knowledge he posted only one unverified post-battle account in his blog (the KV-2 story, which may sound incredible, actually happened and is verified by German sources)

        • Actually, the Soviets were far better at recordkeeping than the Germans. Ask any real historian and they will confirm this.

    • At least she doesn’t copy-paste from SS fanfiction; and in any case historical research does in fact revolve around examining documents.

      • You seem to be slightly upset dude.

        Anyway, I’m pretty sure when it comes to the various fields relating to WW2 tanks, historical research doesn’t cover copying and pasting Spielberger, Jentz, Doyle and others ad nauseam.

        • And you seem to be outright stupid. Historical research does in fact involve a lot of reading through existing materials of known and reputable sources; as original archival research is often very difficult and expensive. Not going through current material just leads you on wild goose chases.

          Secondly, not everyone has access to the sources Daigensui posts, and her posting them is actually pretty useful for those of us actually interested in tanks.

          TL;DR: Stop being jealous of Kankou because she knows way more about tanks than you do and isn’t afraid to share. Doing that just makes you a moron.

  32. All hail the russian master race!

    Seriously, you’re posting soviet propaganda here now?
    Half of this stuff here is just funny…

    • Thankfully that was never big on the Soviet agenda, informal prejudices or no, considering the toxic and eliminationist character of such bullshit on the OTHER side.

      Lack of proper counter-arguments: check.
      Generalised dismissal on spurious grounds: check.

  33. “Myth: Soviet optics were abysmal, and their guns inaccurate, to the point where they could not engage enemy targets at more than a few hundred meters.”

    Fact: Soviet guns do not lack mechanical accuracy, and are occasionally more accurate than their German counterparts. As for optics, Americans praised them at Aberdeen trials: “Consensus: the gun sights are the best in the world. Incomparable to any currently known worldwide or currently developed in America.”.

    —————–

    I absolutely disagree with that statement, often commanders would rather expose themselves opening a hatch than use the optics, the soviet Grozny division reported numerous commander casualities in 1942 due that, and the reason discovered is that the optics system often contained bubbles in the sights due poor production model, early KV and KV-2 Tanks would often claim the radioman’s post because they had better visibility, german trials and reviews also noted that the KV-2 models would often move around the battleground without any particular strategy, turns out that they not only had horrible radios or no radios at all, and that they lacked the visibility to actually spot the enemy due the rather poor optics, but praised tremendously the sturdiness of these tanks

    also, a lot of mechanical breakdowns occurred in these tanks, mostly because lack of proper maintenance or the use of incorrect pieces, theres this particular case with KV models when the transmission would break down very often, turns out threat in the factory, the workers that were in the best cases, semi-cualified for the task, would confuse the assembly pieces and use more brittle elements to build the transmission, this went as far as 1943

    . and most soviet tanks would require factory revision at about 1600 km traveled, but the distances were so great and the railroads so busy that most of these tanks had to actually go to the battlefront on their tracks straight from the factory, causing a lot of breakdowns further when in the middle of battle due the poor manufacture process, ruining suspension, engine transmission and sometimes the crews had to blow up these tanks.. whilst the American tank just kept rolling and rolling and rolling, the german tanks experienced more or less the same problems, but it was mostly caused by poor armor homogenization and engine malfunctions, but had a generally better suspension among its peers until HVSS suspension was introduced to Shermans

    You should investigate this toppic further, because it greatly depends on the manufacturing pocess evolution during the course of war, and its well proven that soviet tended to produce numbers instead of quality in the end. an early soviet KV vehicle was around 918000 Rubles, and by 1943 the order to simplify production led to some VERY poor quality vehicles, but the cost was reduced to barely 600,000 rubles.

    SS and Ensignexpendable, i implore you to look this matter further, because quality of tanks changed grealty for russinas as the war went by, and its understeandable that russians tended to copy and enhance their counterparts, specially on the optics system, at least on some models

    • For the optics the basic Soviet design was essentially the same as the German optics – but quality control was certainly an issue. My sense is that any Soviet vehicle built in 1941/42 would have worse quality due to the industrial dislocation suffered by the Soviet Union, and it’s only in 1943 that they start getting into their groove.

      • Also, the lack of radios thing was a myth, and as you noted mere assumptions by the German opponents of tanks like the KV-2. The KV’s real weakness was a relatively small fuel tank and lack of experienced officers in the early part of the war.

        • When war broke out, Kotin reported that the vanguard tanks form their KV sent to divisions had no radios at all but the preselected frequencies one which was as old as 1920 or used the obsolete “flag signals” to inform of the changes of strategies, the divisional build ups that was to be equipped with kv-2 didn’t had ammo at all when the war broke out

          the reason for this was because the army was undergoing deep structural changes when war broke out so most divisional forces at the borders were caught with half of their tanks being still in the process of transportation

          although i agree with you that their inexperienced officers were also responsible for the tremendous amount of tank loss, i still stand firm on my point that the Soviet vehicles were anything but reliable, at least until the end of 1943 and spring 1944 when the factories had finished their relocation on “tankograd” and commence to produce a steady number of vehicles with varying quality.

          stating that soviet engineering was the best far off german or american is extremely biased, but no doubt that by the end of the war and post war, soviet engineering was on par of their counterparts, but american ended up being the most reliable for that matter due their durability, something that the germans and soviet lacked mechanically

          • On reliability – it really depends on the machine and the year; and exetenuating factors such as supply dislocation. Again, I wouldn’t argue that many Soviet tanks would have less than good reliability in 1941/42, but the inherent reliability of the T-34 design is really demonstrated by how some T-34s are still working up to the 1990s without any real overhauls.

            Also, Soviet engineering was not necessarily superior to US engineering (nobody makes that claim, except for the Cold War). However, there is very little to suggest that German engineering was good, especially with its late-war designs.

        • The KV’s biggest weakness was that Kotin built vehicles for the ace drivers that he had testing his tanks. Then Stalin slapped him upside the head and told him to build vehicles for the average tank driver, and the IS turned out much better.

          As for radios, all Soviet breakthrough tanks had radios. All T-28s, all T-35s, and so did all KVs.

          • “As for radios, all Soviet breakthrough tanks had radios. All T-28s, all T-35s, and so did all KVs”

            Proof? Or is it just an opinion?

            You commie lovers are so funny. XD
            When bad quality for Sowiet tanks is discussed about then you need to remember everyone that those poor sowiets needed to take all their stuff back and build it up again and needed to train their workers so they dont take the wrong glue for the poster of a radio.

            German tanks just where bad from scratch nothing changed for them their workers where trained and hard working “Jews” maybe material got slightly worse but those bombing didnt disturb any progress they had it easy compared to those poor sowiets.

            Like i said you´re so funny. XD

  34. Blitzkrieg was not a doctrine? Lol. The lightning war or “fast war” is older than the ww2. Montecuccoli and Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663) described in the military tradition, fearing of the multifront war, they recognized the campaigns must be swift, fast and short. A long war will bleed out the army, and the solider’s spirit, destroys the country and kills the population. Clausewitz summerized the Napoleonic wars, wich made him well known in military history. Moltke and Schlieffen followed these doctrines and between the two world wars Guderian followed their footstepps. Although this wasn’t apllyable in the first world war beacouse the trench wars, the idea of the “fast war” lived on.

    • Though the “mythbusting” has some points, for example the T-34 was the most relailable tank, but the 40% is simply not true.

      • Which actually supports my point – Blitzkrieg was not a formalized doctrine by the German Army of 1939. It was instead just a rehash of pre-existing doctrines.

        Moreover, no, nobody except journalists used the term “lightning war”.

        • Well, you can say that. Indeed, not the Germans “shitted the Spanish Wax” :D But still it is a military doctrine, but evolved in time.

          • The point was to say that “Blitzkrieg” wasn’t some new thing; it was a pre-existing set of practices already being done by the German Army in the First World War or even the Franco-Prussian War.

            The myth that the Germans invented some all-new doctrine was created by the British and French armies, who didn’t want to admit that they were beaten by an army using the same strategy as 1918.

            The difference in 1940, tanks and aircraft, was much overblown because it actually comprised only a fraction of the attacking force. The basis of the strategy/doctrine was much older and should have been spotted by the British/French had they not been so busy being incompetent.

            • What the germans added, especially the army was (The Wehrmacht, not the Drunken SS) highly trained and traditional army (if some of you guys argue, it was cheaper to maintain, than a mercenary army). My point is, that Wehrmacht was a proffessional army, very flexible and creative.

            • In thought: Yeah, the newsreporters done bad jobs, didn’t really knew history. My addition also:
              The soliders duty was wrote at the 1808 reform Era of the Prussian military regulation, it was reintroduced at 1930. may. 9-th law. It formulated the courage, obedience, help and care for camaraderie. Hindenburg’s 1934.05.25 law is strengtened it, every solider had to learn it. Military virtues and role models was made from the greek and roman mithology, and the 1600 Maurice, Prince
              of Orange’s reform. The main source was the “De constantin” (1584) writing, that was about mental and moral education. This included different traits, like discipline, self-control, self-restraint and the stay away from selfishness and violent acts. The officers traits must be skills, leading by example,humanity, moral integrity. 1933. febr. 3., Von Blomberg defence minister had a speech, that reinforced this traits, but didn’t considered Hitler’s living space theory seriously, becouse “words are more daring, than actions”. The Reichwer wanted to stay the only military organization in the nation, but the growing SA was their rival, and if they wanted to compete with them they had to give Hitler to a better alternative for a national Socialist army.

    • Re: The Wermacht

      It was actually a largely conscript army. However, it did have excellent tactical flexibility, and initiative at the junior officer level was outstanding. That was the strength of the German Army

            • Yep. As we both noted the strength of the German army was its junior officer initiative and outstanding tactical flexibility.

              No Army in the world could easily break up entire battalions into small component parts without great loss in unit cohesion. And they kept at from the first days of the war to the last days of the war.

              On this point I will easily concede that the German Army was better, and it’s the main reason why it takes 1.5 Allied soldiers to beat a German one (a statistical analysis by the Dupuy institute)

        • Also, I might write some articles because I think I got misquoted a bit in some of my “debunkings”.

  35. People praising the German tanks are forgeting about one “small” detail. Armour, the quality of it. As the war progressed Germans had less and less of an access o the raw materials, so the quality of the mass produced tanks was hardly able to reach the design specification. Not in terms of thickness, but metal quality, or “purity”.

    • Actually the exact opposite of purity; it was the shortages of any number of trace elements, additives and whatnots used to fine-tune the metallurgy of the steel for its intented purpose that were the problem. (Strictly speking steel is “impure” per definitionem, being iron with carbon mixed in…)

  36. So myths? Hey? You better should watch some BBC documentaries about WWII and here those poor bastards who opposed german soldiers and tanks or weaponry. Or maybe talk to some real veterans of WWII.
    Don´t know why you and all you “comrades” spread this awesome crap.
    Maybe you are a mental midget, that would explain alla lot. ROFL

    • You mean the same BBC documentaries which constantly excuse exceedingly bad British generalship, such as Monty’s grand “I will send an entire armored corps up a road one tank wide” plan?

        • It really is. BBC’s not particularly good at being transparent about British wartime mistakes.

        • In world where 90% of movies come from Hollywood its hard to notice the western propaganda, mostly because it has been so long people blindly believe anything that is shown to them…

          Cmon people, west has the best propaganda in the world, it trumps the german and soviet one combined!

    • …because the “frog in a well” perspective and anecdotal experience of line grunts is SUCH an objective and reliable source. Especially given the noted morale problems of the Democracies’ armies by the time of the NW European campaign and the universal tendency of soldiers to blame their equipement for just about anything.

  37. What a bullshit “Communist” propaganda article! Its not only what you write, its the way you write also. This has nothing to do with Myths, its simple russish propaganda and you poor boy beliefe it.

  38. What a bunch of horse shit.. Shermans were junk, and Cooper finally set the record straight.

    Also there is no record any tank in WWII ever penetrating the frontal armor of a King Tiger. Period.

    Why does FTR print utter trash these days? Such a useless site anymore.

    • More stupidity. Cooper’s unit most likely never even fought Panthers or Tigers. His book is largely lies created out of whole cloth.

  39. “Myth: Order #227 of the People’s Commissariat of Defense, nicknamed “Not One Step Back”, allowed for executions of Soviet soldier and officers without trial by commissars for retreating.
    Fact: Many people have heard of the order, but never actually read it. The text of the order states that officers that retreat without authorization are to be relieved of duty and face court-martial. Court-martial for disobeying orders is common procedure in any army. “Panickers and cowards should be executed”, however, did allow for overzealous interpretation. ”

    Didin’t you just prove, what you were trying to disprove? That the order having “Panickers and cowards should be executed” basically allowed commissars to call any retreating soldier a coward and shoot them?

    • Not really; what he’s showing is that the Soviet Army was no more extraordinary in its punishment of deserters.

      It begs to remember that while the West frowns upon shooting deserters (the US Army shot only one man for desertion in the entire war), other armies were not as forgiving. Something like 10,000 German “soldiers” – mostly old men who didn’t want to fight – were executed without trial in the closing days of the war by the SS and police units.

    • The actual phrase was: Паникеры и трусы должны истребляться на месте (The panic-mongers and cowards should be exterminated in place).

      More importantly, this was in the long preamble, and not specifically part of the orders.

      • Either my Russian is a bit rusty, or that isn’t an exact quote, because that should be translated as “The panic-mongers and cowards should exterminate themselves in place”. Shouldn’t it be “Паникеры и трусы должны быт истребляни на месте”? Still, even if it’s in the preamble, the order did provide the basis for commissars to shoot those named cowards on site, witch does prove the “myth”.

        • The dictatorships were all pretty rude about enforcing discipline. As it happens by what I’ve read the Soviet orders were actually welcomed by the commanders at the front and actually improved discipline and combat endurance, so at least they served a purpose.
          Which is more than can be said of, say, SS squads hanging deserters from lampposts in the final days at Berlin.

    • THOSE pretty much debunk themselves with lines like “electro-gravitic engines” which compulsory-education level physics laughs out of the house.

  40. To make a note of some of these facts, here’s some input I’d like to provide.

    Regarding the Panther, the earlier versions that saw action in 1943 (i.e the Battle of Kursk) didn’t have the mentioned armor quality issues mentioned (armor quality became an issue sometime in 1944, around the time of the Normandy landings). HOWEVER, they DID have the whole series’ issues regarding engines and suspension, the latter of which being the biggest issue (the engine’s issues could be mitigated by a skilled driver and competent mechanics, but the suspension was simply an inherent flaw to the design).

    Regarding the IS, it’s true that the IS-1 had nothing to do with countering the Tiger, nor can that be said of the up-gunned IS-2 (though considering that the Tiger was first used at Leningrad, it’s possible that the people that came up with the specifications for the upgrade to the IS-2 had the Tiger in mind when calling for a 122 mm gun to be mounted).

    And lastly, regarding the myth about “inaccurate” Soviet guns…well…ANY gun is inaccurate when you have a tank crewed by conscripts with barely any training, though this started to disappear once the Soviets gained some more experience and began to push the Germans back.

  41. “Most people focus on the three SS divisions that were LAH, Reich, and Totenkopf, which were equivalent to a Wehrmacht division at the best of times. The remaining SS divisions were barely Volkssturm quality, assigned to rear line duties such as executing civilians and fighting partisans. (Credit: Zinegata, Brickfight)”

    Nice BS… New myth to counter old myth.

    Viking division was like Volkssturm?? Those kids from Hitlerjugend in Normandy, who stopped for many days much more numerous ally forces were like Volkssturm? Division Nordland, brigade Nederland and Latvian and Estonian divisions were fighting under Narva like Volkssturm?? Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg were also like Volkssturm?

    There were many strong SS divisions, not only those 3 you mentioned. There were of course volkssturm- like SS divisions, which were mainly nongerman units fighting against guerilla (weak German division were there also, specially those made in last months of war), but there were at least 10 strong divisions, which were hard to beat. All of them were almost all the time fighting in the first line instead as you wrote “executing civilians and fighting partisans”.

    • Hmmm, actually he snipped off part of my spiel. The first three were competent. The single-digit ones (inc Wiking) were “bad to okay”. The remainder (20+ Divisions) were of Volksgrenadier quality.

      I would strongly disagree that there were 10 strong Divisions however. The strong ones were Lifeguard Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, and Totenkopf – at least after 1942 and prior to June 1944. The rest varied greatly in quality. In general, the SS Divisions were at their peak in 1943 (but still outshined by the top-notch Wermacht outfits – Grossdeutchland, Panzer-Lehr, heck even the 352nd Infantry), but declined terribly afterwards.

      • Oh, and an exception to the “bad to okay”among the single-digits is the 4th SS. It was a polizei (police) Division. The 7th Mountain was also pretty awful, spending most of the war failing at fighting Yugoslavian partisans.

        Wiking, I must also say upon rechecking, is terribly overrated.

        • Overrated, sure…

          WWII by Zinegata “Germans had 6 good divisions rest was useless, buhahahahaa. “

          • The Germans actually had something like 20 excellent Panzer Divisions and 40 top-notch infantry Divisions in 1941. However, none of those belonged to the SS.

            The Luftwaffe Field Army also frankly had better units than the SS. No SS Division was ever asked to fight off an entire US Corps. The 3rd Fallschirmjaeger did – fighting the US V Corps – and lasted 24 hours despite being hit by enough bombs to equal a tactical nuke.

            So really, keep being a dishonest git who miscontrues my position.

            • Sure, first you write only about 6 strong. Now you add more (but from other time, when Waffen-SS was still small formation) and I am here dishonest.

              Maybe first think, whats your opinion and then try to show it clearly. Cause your opinions already caused that EE writes that whole Waffen SS apart from 3 divisions was like Volkssturm. Historians from the internet, lol.

              Writing about Wiking “terribly overrated” is for me huge BS. It was one of dozens of strong German divisions. Like around 10 other SS divisions. Overrated (EE “Volkssturm”) division were not fighting more then 3 years on Eastern front. When unit was bad Germans usually disbanded it or send against guerilla, which happened to many weak SS divisions.

            • Considering he was originally speaking of the Waffen-SS, it’s rather you that’s being either an idiot or deliberately bad at reading comprehension.

        • The 4. SS was rated II-class in 1942 by Heeresgruppe Nord:
          “Good, proven division with good leadership”

          If anything the myth is that it was not a good combat unit. (Although obviously not in the same league as the premier divisions).

          • Hmm, that checks out. It was part of actual heavy fighting on the East Front in ’42. That’s better than the supposedly “elite” SS Mountain Division that didn’t do jack squate in Yugoslavia.

      • Depend what you mean by strong. Cause your text shows that Germans had only 6 strong divisions in whole war… I think that there were at least dozens.

        Also I see difference (huge one!) between Volksgrenadier and Volkssturm (while EE wrote that rest apart from 3 SS divisions were like Volkssturm, which is huge BS).

        By the way Volskgrenadier divisions also differed hugely in quality, so comparision is rather bad.

        • Given that you think I said there’s only 6 strong German Divisions and you think that the SS are the only ones who had strong Divisions, you’re pretty much miscontruing my position and demonstrating yourself to be a pretty bad SS fanboy.

          15th and 21st Panzer Division were not SS outfits, and pretty much kept the entire British Army in North Africa busy for 2 years.

          Or how about the 352nd Division? Fought an entire US Corps AND a British Corps for the first couple of days in D-Day. Was virtually annihilated by the second week of the invasion, but kept the Americans from taking St Lo. Outstanding outfit, and again not SS.

          And I’m not even yet citing famous Divisions like Grossdeutchland (non-SS) or Panzer-Lehr (non-SS).

          • Oh, and regarding two topics:

            Most of the two-digit SS outfits were in fact Volkstrum quality. Units who mutiny and shoot their own officers don’t even make it to Volksgrenadier level.

            Secondly, as for Wiking, people love forgetting their annihilation at the Korsun pocket, and make it out to be some kind of glorious last stand instead.

          • “I think that there were at least dozens.”

            Where did I write it?!! Learn to read!!

            If I wrote that there were at least dozens strong German divisions and called as strong around 10 SS, so how the hell I can think that only Ss were strong and how the hell I am ss fanboy?? You have soem serious problems with reading or with logic.

            Bye

            • The citation in the beginning should be” “you think that the SS are the only ones who had strong Divisions,”

            • And here we confirm MD is a certifiable liar.

              You’re the one who said I claimed there were only six good German Divisions. I was talking specifically about the SS when I said there were only a small number of them were good.

              There were many more good Divisions in the regular army than in that overrated mess called the SS; people know very well that I have always had this position. Perhaps you should stop lying because you think you can get away with it?

            • Oh, lol, first you accuse me for being SS fanboy, without any proff and now you call me a liar??? Why it was you, who made false accusation?

              Zinegata, you are really big retard…

  42. nice info bro,
    but what’s all that related to WoT of tanks?
    - battles fought on WWF style 2x2km maps?
    - limited to 15/15 ?
    - trained crews re cloned to fight gazillion fights and survive billion destroyed tanks?
    - stealth tech from star-trek?
    - and, tanks with Health Bars? (if you have enough time to clobber the same piece of metal on the tank, it will explode pokemon style)

    • Lots of people demand maps of 2km+. In reality, most tank battles were fought at 500m range, which is will within the WoT map size.

  43. Truth be told, I’ve checked further explanations of few of those “corrected” myths and felt disenchanted. F.e. you write that Panther had exceptionally poor armor, showing one example. Where the reference posted under it’s clearly written that it took 3 HE shells to crack the armor. After 3 hits turret crew was killed. But apart from that the tank “took no damage”.
    I’m not an expert, but that looks to me like quite effective armor, especially in light of what you wrote, that Allies and Soviets didn’t have much problems penetrating German tanks.

    It’s similar in the other points as well.

    It looks to me that you are creating myths do fight other myths.

    • The point is that HE shells aren’t supposed to damage tanks at all. The Panther’s armor, now made of poor quality materials, shattered under HE attack.

      That’s not good armor. That’s incredibly bad armor.

      • That’s some bs. Receiving multiple hits by HE shells MAY damage armor. Receiving one hit by strong enough HE shell may do it as well. Having in mind that late-war German steel wasn’t as good as, lets say, mid-war, presenting us with one example of cracked armor and saying that this means that all Panthers (or, even better, German tanks) had bad armor, is creating another lie.

        • The cracking and uneven quality was noted by both the Soviets and the Democracies, independently and at different times. And this was the “great white hope” that was the Panther, supposed to eventually replace older medium tanks in service. Those kinds of problems on such a design speak of serious problems in the German war industry, notably in terms of metallurgically important additives.
          Which, as it happens, indeed were a constant source of ulcers for their industrial planners; the simple fact was that the whole German Grossraum was for all practical intents and purposes blockaded on a continental level, and the prewar stockpiles of assorted minor metals, rare earths and whatnots whose industrial importance laymen tend to be quite unaware of only lasted so far.

  44. A lot of bullshit and the author who put together these “myths” is totally biased.

    Won’t even start the discussion about back-shooting-commie order. The best argument the author had was that the officers didn’t shoot those who fell back because of the order, but because he was a deserter and that is what you do with them. I could make something up similar to that about the judenfrage, will see how much offense I will cause there.

    • …because enforcing military discipline in a war fought literally for existential survival is TOTALLY the same thing as deliberately murdering millions of dfenceless civilians over bullshit racist fantasies, right?

      You have no fucking case.

  45. idk what’s going on,but again article full of crap -.- …… again!!!
    this blog use to be very good with interesting stuff in in it,now more and more shity articles about USA fans who is pulling data out of his ass!!! you cant change history damn it,deal with it!!
    as regular reader i am very disappointed in which direction this blog goes,hope you will wake up and think twice before you publish another crap article like this!

    regards

    Peter

    • Yes, we can’t change history. The problem however is many Internet experts claim that German armor is superior (it wasn’t) and that the Germans fought an honorable war against the dirty evil commies (it wasn’t).

      The reality of history is that the Soviet Union fought against a completely criminal regime from top to bottom, where even common soldiers (non-SS) were complicit if not actively participaring in the mass-murder of civilians, which is again why 2/3s of Soviet casualties were civilians and not combatants.

      That Western authors and pro-Nazi fetishists insist on clinging on this long-discredited version of history to attack convenient targets (“The Evil Russians”) merely demonstrates their own complete lack of intellectual honesty; and frankly demonstrated their own prejudices more than anything.

      • This is your problem, problem of all of USA and many other nations. You keep connectinb politics with everything. Not a single person in here defends them. That was one sick regime which deserved to be defeated and punished, and it did. But just because of that you cant fake history just to make yoy feel good about yourself and to “dishonest” their armor and et cetera for your personal gains

  46. really retarted article full bias. this blog now lost all trustfulness… gg.. just another backstabber blog writer sell truths for rants.

    • Make a proper argument as to why he is wrong and we can talk. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

  47. Oh of course I´v forgotten – earth is flat and a disc and the sun revolves around it. What kind of blog is this ?
    One for the mentally handicapped?

    • Judging by the number of wehraboos and Nazi fanbois in the comments, it’s rather popular among that market segment. But thankfully it accepts all readers, unlike the Nazis who as it happens practiced systematic “negative eugenics” – in agrarian societies known as “murder” – of the mentally deficient.

  48. So basically everything the Germans had was trash, and everything the Soviets and the Allies had was top notch. Amazing :D

  49. From a thread on the NA forum?

    The NA fourm has a RABID anti german thing going on, for some reason. Any thread stating that it debunks myths is gonna be swimming in anti-wehraboo bias.

    And surprise suprise, just about all all of those myths are pro allies, anti german…ZzZzZZZZZzzzzZzZZzzZ

    About the duel of dessau thing, I have a book at home that quotes Hunnicutt’s T20 – Pershing book about the encounter…so that £1500 book is full of shit yeah?

    • Yes, the book is wrong on that one plain and simple.

      If you look at the 3rd Armored Divsion’s official report on the Battle for Dassau (this is called a “primary source”), you’ll find that they actually encountered ZERO enemy tanks at Dassau. No Panzer IV, no Panther, and definitely no Tiger II.

      The only person claiming that there was a duel at Dassau was the gunner of the Super Pershing. But his own commander didn’t see it or report it, and neither did anyone else in the Division. He made up a story to pad his own reputation, plain and simple.

  50. Myth: Germans could knock out Allied tanks at great ranges, and routinely did so from distances as great as 2 kilometers or even greater.
    Fact: Research indicates that the average engagement range was only several hundred meters. Shots from over 1 kilometer were either rarely taken, or rarely reached their target.

    /**/

    This was new to me and surprising.
    I have read some war-time diaries, they say that the usual fire distance was about 1…1.5km.

    • Tiger I crews were ordered to open fire at about 1km, Tiger II/Nashorn crews at 1.500-2.000m.
      According to the 8,8cm Pa.K.43/1 manual moving targets were to be engaged up to 1.200m.
      Immobile targets were to be engaged up to 4.000m (Pzgr.39-1), 2.000m (Pzgr.40/43 and Gr.39 Hl).

      • Yup, if you read memoirs of Soviet tankers many of them confirm that Germans would open fire at long distances, while they had to approach them and shoot from closer range, like 500m at least.

        • For shots over 1000 meters, it took anti-tank gun crews an average of 11+ shots to score a hit to destroy an enemy tank. This is really a huge reason why nobody engaged at such long distances – nobody one shot, one kills at that range.

          • Source?

            The average accuracy (hitting a 2×2,5m target) expected from gunner under combat conditions at a range of 1000m with the second shot was:

            7,5cm Kw.K.42 L/70
            97% (Pzgr.39/42)
            56% (Pzgr.40/42)

            8,8cm Kw.K.36 L/56
            93% (Pzgr.39)
            80% (Pzgr.40)
            62% (Gr. 39 Hl)

            8,8cm Kw.K.43 L/71
            85% (Pzgr. 39/43)
            89% (Pzgr. 40/43)

            • Jentz, who took the actual ammunition expenditures of an 88 flak battery.

              Frankly, your numbers seem complete bullshit. 90% hit by the second shot? Really? Maybe against a stationary target, but the lack of context other than “Woo, look at the awesome second shot accuracy” really seems to indicate this is just test training data.

            • Training data at 1.000m would be:

              7,5cm Kw.K. 42 (L/70)
              100% (Pzgr. 39/42)
              94% (Pzgr. 40/42)

              8,8cm Kw.K.36 L/56
              100% (Pzgr. 39)
              99% (Pzgr. 40)
              94% (Gr. 39 Hl)

              8,8cm Kw.K.43 L/71
              100% (Pzgr. 39/43)
              100% (Pzgr. 40/43)

            • 1km + range kills are noted and remarked upon are because they were unusual .
              It’s like how air crews keep remarking about the durability of X bomber that was able to fly back despite horrendous damage .. THese instances that was very rare and the exception rather than the norm(why they are worthy of remark). Getting shot by an enemy just 500 meters away would not find itself into any literature (on te other hand <100 meter engagements would). German at gun crews were well known for having excellent fire discipline they waited for the enemy to come within circa 500 meters and get the range estimate correct and only then opened fire … The engagement range is also mentioned in the tigerfible.

    • You know where the figure of speech “a long shot” comes from? AFAIK it’s Early Modern naval artillery parlance, and referred to speculative shots taken at long ranges (which were less than you might think in the original context) more to harass and unnerve the enemy than out of any particular expectation of scoring a hit.
      Same thing I suspect.
      Though AFAIK insofar 8,8cm FlaK guns in the AT role were concerned long-range firing was the norm, both because they were normally deployed well behind the main infantry line and because they HAD to try to settling the fight at standoff distances – should the enemy get close enough to retaliate effectively, the immobile, conspicious and wholly unpotected guns were obviously in for a bad time.

  51. >As for optics, Americans praised them at Aberdeen trials
    Pre-war T-34 was different from ones prodused during the war. AFAIK, after the war started, optics went much worse, and some T-34, builded in REALLY extreme conditions, even had no optics at all.

    • Legend goes the last tanks to come out of the Stalingrad factories were thrown into the fighting straight off the assemply line so, yeah. And IIRC the Leningrad factories took to making SMG barrels by sawing surplus rifle barrels in half.
      Needs must and all that.
      Rather obviously things improved greatly once the industry recovered from the hasty evacuation to the Urals.

  52. If all those “people speaking truth” here on FTR and WOT and everywhere else were right, I am just curious how a country with TODAY 80 mil people could fight off 292 mil of that time USSR IIRC, I dont know exact numbers of rest of allies, but today UK and France got both around 50mil? And USA 360? Canada 20? Poland 40? India contributed around 1mil soldiers itself, but Pacific front was something different, many other countires contributed there to both sides; all ai want to say, that if german armor, command and training really werent simply better overal, the war would last 1-2 years top and it would be mostly about defence of germany. Also, keep in mind, that when Chamberlain invited germans to the czechoslovakia as a gift and then they attacked poland and france, their army wasquite weak in numbers and equipment amongst germans wasnt the best avaible in europe at that time, you state the same. Of course there were units which were inferior to allies, of course sometimes allied tanks kicked german ass really hard, but germans were overall better prepared for war and handled it much better than other countries, even with guerilla everywhere and constant sabotages.

    And btw, my grandpa was in war, fought in red army and served in recoinassance paratrooper unit until in their last mission russians kindof screwed it (dropped there elsewhere, abit too deep in german lines), they pursuited them like dogs for few days until they caught half of them, executed them and the rest died during fighting back.
    My othergrana was bombed by germans, then us, then germans, grandma by hungarians, then russians, then invaded by germans, then bombed by both and people everywhere were being executed for guerilla actions and not reporting them, for deportations or for fun perhaps. I have absolutely no reason to defend germans, I would just like to keep history objective and not blinded by victors points of view. As another comment here stated, those facts are cut off from context and therefor provide not so much value

    • Your numbers are way off on the population – present-day population numbers don’t count when we already have census numbers from the Second World War.

      Moreover, much more importantly – people forget that Germany was similarly “outnumbered” in the First World War and still outright defeated Russia, and almost defeated France and Britain. And the population disparity in the First World War was about as bad as the Second.

      The problem, as usual, is people think population = power, when it isn’t. Otherwise China should have won the Opium War easily. What’s actually important is either better technology, or a stronger economy. German technology was actually at par with the Allies (except in the field of tactical leadership, where it was better). Germany also had a much stronger economy than France, Britain, or even the Soviet Union.

      Don’t believe me? Check the steel production figures. Germany produced three times as much steel as the Soviet Union. Germany was a real economic powerhouse, and the power of its military was reflected by this power.

      • Interestingly enough, skoda factories along with the rest of industry in csr made up huge portion of german warmachine, again, thank allies, that could easily prevent wwii in the first place. Anyway, you completely missed my point. The point was and is, germany was better prepared, both industry wise, which I mentioned, not denied like you state, and also in command, as you have agreed. THose facts are just reasons, not a result. The result is that because of so manybad, really wrong decisions and things done by allies, germans were simply better. You can not win simply by economy and you can not win simply with power. Acient romans didjt have men and hired barbars, speeding up the downfall, china had men, but it had its own problems, waged war for much longer and it started much sooner then wwii. When you talk about power equals economy, look who controlled the rhine before wwii. Look how many divisions and how many soldiers had germans and how many france alone at the moment of german invasion in poland. Ironicly, look at numbers in stalingrad, where most of the time germans had more numbers, but russians were reinforcing all the time. (Reinforcing, not neccesarily throwing into machine gun fire ). You may say but but but all the time, you still agreed at the end they were simply better at war. Maybe not by much in everything, but when evetything got put together, it brought many decisive victories

      • Also, dont forget the economic bubble created for preparations for war, many said without it german economy would collapse, since there were so many frauds just to make it look strong and to speed up production of war material. Look up what were they doing with their money in switzerland and at world markets. If you want to go deeper, you must go all the way, much much further, then just extension of what they teach in schools. And the sad thing is, many knew what was happening and did nothing, almost nothing or not enough, even when they could.

      • Btw, why do you think I stresed out the word “today”. Of course they all had fewer people, much less than today, the point was at least vague comparison.

        • The point though, is to show that Germany had always had stronger economic power than France/Britain/Soviet Union, and that economic power is what truly translates to military power and NOT population.

          This is why the defeat of the French and British in 1940 should not be seen as a surprise – they were almost beaten in 1918 by a very similarly strong Germany; only in 1940 Germany was NOT saddled with a two-front war.

          Therefore, it is highly misleading to imply that the Germans were particularly good at warmaking just because they fought more populous enemies. From a strictly economic standpoint, they SHOULD have won against France and Britain, and they had an advantage over the Soviet Union.

          That Hitler decided to add America to the mix just doomed Germany, due to America’s vast economic power.

          • Yeah, thanks to France, the fear of Germany, they rushed to change currency to Euro, it is the sourse of the economic depression. Thanks France…

          • Maaan, people like you are driving me crazy to the point I am considering writting an article myself (If silentstalker had an interest in publishing it), but to differentiate from those “facts out of sleeves” I would post here books which all describe these things I keep rambling about, so people could verify it. Only if Ihad time to spare to re read them all. But keep it coming and it may be an interesting reading for all of you; accually, I could write something even about czechoslovak fortification, it is not too well known topic, especially for foreigners….

          • Actually from a strictly economic standpoint Germany should have LOST to the Entente, as happened in WW1 (and in spite of having overrun the most industrialised corner of France). Note also that it had like half again France’s population, which detail had worried French planners since the 1870s.
            The colonial empire helped, ofc.

            The Germans could read economic statistics like everyone else and knew this perfectly well, which is exactly why they were so desperate for a quick “knock-out” victory.

  53. Looks like some myths are replaced by others, not debunked.

    For example, Soviet tanks’ optics WERE inferior to German designs, at least until T-34-85 entered service. And this is from Russian tankers who had a chance to compare the tanks – I suggest reading Artem Drabkin’s book where he interviews several T-34 commanders (some of them WWII tank aces) who all confirm that one thing.

    • Exactly what i thought about this article. It should be called “WW2 Myths replaced by another WW2 Myths”. Some, if not even most, of the facts listed by author to back up his claims are second hand sources of at best debatable reliability or are based on single anecdotic evidence.

    • Again, it depends on the actual period of the war. And I know for a fact that some Soviet pre-war optics were exact copies of German ones, making it very silly to claim that one is better than the other when they’re both using the exact same design.

    • In Parola armoured museum the StuG III has a plaquate next to it were tanker veterans say StuG III (or “Sturmi” as it was called in Finland) having the best optics in any tank Finland used until T-72 came to service. The StuG III remained in service as a training vehicle spesifically for the excellence of the optics until late 1960′s. The praise goes spesifically to the clarity of the vision. So for 30+ years none of the Soviet or British tanks used by Finland had according to these veterans even same quality optics as the lowly StuG III.

  54. Myth: The T-34 was a very unreliable tank.
    Fact: I’ve worked with T-34/85′s, and the thing broke down constantly. While our Sherman’s and Stug III worked fine. One perfect example was we had a show coming up, so the T-34/85 was given an full overhaul the previous weekend. The next weekend it managed one and a half circuits of the arena before the Gear box died. It had to be recovered by our Warrior ARV.

    • While that’s interesting, the article is about how T-34 performed during the war, not decades later without access to original spare parts and experienced Soviet mechanics.

      • When did the Panzer III production line shut down? As I said the Stug ran just fine. As did our Sherman’s.
        T-34′s were being produced for many years after the war, it is, after all, something like the worlds second or third most produced AFV.

        What can I say in my year of experience (and its been reinforced by talking to some of the guys at the museum on a later occasion), the T34 is a pile of unreliable garbage.

        • I know for a fact that most Shermans had extensive overhausl and even new engines. Stugs are less likely, but Stugs were really reliable in the first place which is why it’s the superior vehicle to the useless Panther.

      • The average wartime T-34 probably didn’t survive long enough to develop serious wear and tear. I once had the pleasure to talk to a former NVA (East German Army) mechanic and he said a similiar thing. The T-34/85′s they received in the 50ies were mechanically totally unreliable (under peacetime conditions that is).

          • Hey I’m all for debunking myths, that’s why I started writing.

            But in my personal experience (and I can’t stress that enough, its my Personal experience) that particular one is true.

  55. Thanks heaps for bringing these myths to and end.
    About time somebody set the record stright.

  56. A most useful compendium. It’s been quite a while since I’ve read Cooper; didn’t realize at the time it was that bad!

  57. But interessing to see..

    Germans: only the “good myths” being rebutted..
    Allies: Mostly the “bad myths” being rebutted..

    • The reason is there are fewer “good” Allied myths to debunk. But if you want a shortlist, they include:

      1) Soviet claims that Prokorovka was the greatest tank battle ever (it wasn’t, that honor belongs to the French and Germans) and that they won resoundingly. In reality an entire Soviet Tank Corps annihilated itself in a very stupid massed tank assault.

      2) Allied airpower was so powerful and instrumental in taking out enemy tanks (Reality: Less than 10% of German tank losses were due to aircraft)

      3) America won the war on its own (it didn’t. The ETO was about the East Front always).

      4) The British were really competent at armored warfare because they had visionaries like Liddell-Hart (they weren’t. They kept losing hundeds of tanks in a single day due to their persistence in launching massed tank assaults into the teeth of anti-tank guns. And there is a controversy surrounding Liddel-Hart falsely claiming Guderian was inspired by his book).

      5) Monty was a good general.(Way overrated, but he was competent)

      6) Patton was a great general (He’s good but he’s given more credit than he actually did)

      Oh, and I also already covered how the British and French were beaten in 1940 by tactics from 1918; not by tanks and aircraft

      • “5) Monty was a good general.(Way overrated, but he was competent)

        6) Patton was a great general (He’s good but he’s given more credit than he actually did)”

        Oh Christ.. INCOMING!
        *Ducks because he know what happens after those comments get made**

        • Any objective observer of the war however, would know that Monty IS way overrated. His strength is his excellent organization skills, refusal to bow to political pressure (or any pressure in general), and a keen understanding of army-level logistics.

          Unfortunately, he has this tendency to send massed tanks against overly narrow corridors which results in massive tank losses, culminating in that utmost stupidity known as Market-Garden wherein an entire armored corps was sent up one stinking road.

          Patton has most of Monty’s virtues without the “send tanks into suicidal situations” bit. But Patton never really fought any of the “decisive” battles – he was almost always relegated to a relatively secondary front; and he was always just one of the actors in the big battles he was able to join up in.

          • i’m sorry but any second world war general that physically abuses shell shocked soldiers in back line field hospitals counts as incompetent in my book.

            • To be fair, the phenomenom wasn’t fully understood at the time. Though by all accounts Patton was pretty much exactly the sort of senior officer who wouldn’t quite believe in it anyway.

            • That has nothing to do with his generalship and everything to do with your own pompous definition of morality.

              A general’s job is to get his soldiers to fight and accomplish their mission. Not to make them feel good.

  58. It`s an interesting article but I feel that the way you presented it is wrong.After reading it a person could easily understand that actually German tanks were a pile of crap and that they were inferior to anything on the battlefield,which is far from true.

    “Myth: German tanks in general, and Tigers in particular, were impervious to Allied guns.
    Tigers were vulnerable to even Shermans armed with 75 mm guns. The longer 76 mm gun (superior in AP performance to the Soviet 85 mm gun, which could handle Tigers just fine) had no problem with Tigers or Panthers. British “Firefly” Shermans equipped with 17 pounder guns could effectively combat any German armour, including Tiger II tanks.”

    Well,yes they could`ve been destroyed by Soviet 85 mm gun but that would be very unlikely in a frontal confrontation.As I already rad in one of your topics, it was also able to destroy several T-34`s and than hunt them in the woods until it ran out of ammo,bouncing 67 shots.

    “Myth: German and crews were superior to anything the Allies had, and achieved an X:1 kill to death ratio (the number varies greatly).
    Fact: The flaws of German kill counts are covered in detail here and here.”

    I don`t have the time to search for detailed statistics,but as we can see from this site only the Russians lost 12 Million soldiers where the Germans lost 3.25 Million soldiers fighting the Russians and the rest of the Europe. So,even if the Germans managed to “Cheat at statistics” (you don`t mention your sources of that article,so I`m very skeptical of those statements),the after war statistics even if not very accurate still show that the German Military had a 1:X ratio of kills.

    And so on,as I said,all the things you stated here are correct but the way you present it makes the German tanks look bad which isn`t the case.

    An archer could kill a present day soldier if he managed to put an arrow in his neck,but this doesn’t mean that an archer is superior to the present day soldier

    • The actual comparable ratio based on latest literature is 15 million Soviet permanent military losses versus 10 million Axis permanent military losses. This includes killed, captured, or permanently disabled.

      Dupuy also supports that the ratio was at best 1.5×1.

      The problem, as noted in Cheating At Statistics, is that people claim ratios much higher than this. If the Germans actually inflicted a 2:1 kill ratio, they would have won the war – because the Soviet Union’s men of MILITARY AGE was only twice that of the Germans.

      Which is also why killing all of those civilians didn’t help the Germans. Old men, women, and children don’t add to the military age pool.

      • >Old men, women, and children don’t add to the military age pool.
        Sure they do. Soviets used them liberally, Germans started doing it only in the last days (Volkssturm)

        • Women, yes but only in selected Red Army battalions.

          Old men and young boys, generally not because as the Germans found they were largely ineffective.

          The vast majority of the Red Army was still made up of men of military age, just like the German Army, and again the reality of the situation is that the Soviets only outnumbered the Germans 2×1 in that department. The Soviets were actually really short on manpower by 1945 because of the 1.5×1 loss ratio, to the point that a good chunk of their troops at the Battle of Berlin were newly liberated prisoners.

      • USSR had 290 mil people or so, germany how many, 40, 60? Get your numbers right. If ussr conscrips 10%, how uch will they have and how much germany?

          • Nope, you just convicted yourself of being an idiot. A real, huge, arrogant and ignorant idiot. A moron indeed. If you dont know even the difference between ussr of pre wwii and after wwii and yet you insult, you should go dig a hole for you and hide there forever. Shame on you. You know why I insulted you? Because first I checked it and you know what? Immideatly found out I was right in the first place. I, instead of you, double checked it in case I was wrong. But no, I fucking easily found out I was true and you, despite having those facts in front of you, started just insulting. That means you did not look for it nor you even read what you just post here as your evidence of truth. People like you who want to argue about history and dont know even basic facts sicken me. If I dont know a shit about something, I am quiet and I try to learn about it. The heck, I have to know a shitstorm of facts and I have to be sure on so many levels before I dare to speak about something, especially in such a comunity which has so many people that care about real history and study it for longer they than they can write. My grandpa was educating me from fucking 5 years or so until I learned more than him and teached him and yet I dont dare to compare my small knowledge to the most educated people in this subject. Yet you insult me straigh in first words. You make me sick. You dont have a fucking idea of basic political impacts of wwii and you want to argue with me about deep political/economical states of each country during the course of history. And before you shit your pants again, military study from this point of view in this topic can be put under politics, if you did not know even this, since it would not surprise me

            • I am sorry for my bitter tongue, yes, you deinitely deserved it, since you was neither correct and was off by quite a lot yourself to start insulting in your first sentance and still did not prove opposote of what was said ( russians simply had much more manpower and yet germans faced other opponents). They were outnumbered an still won so many battles against many odds

            • To that excuse – I still should not have lowered tk your level , but anyone can somefimes lose temper when others start insulting for no particular reason

          • From that table it says ussr had at least 200 mil people, so the truth is somewhere in between, but you should not by any means start insulting, definitely not if you are also wrong. An agression invites further agression in defence, while defence can be justfied, offence can not.

            • I’m wondering what part of “1/1/1939″ you missed, doubly so as it is echoed for example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union#Population_2
              …and I daresay the round thirty million (presumably mainly Poles and Balts) added between ’39 and ’41 can be considered irrelevant for most practical intents and purposes, since the newly-added subjects for obvious reasons weren’t exactly what might be called “realiable” and those territories were lost to the Germans very shortly after the outbreak of hostilities anyway.

              Also still nowhere even *near* 290 million, which wasn’t reached before sometime around 1990.

            • You have to count them if they were conscripted. Don’t forget those penal divisions with neither rigid loyalty. If we will elaborate so much, then we could also point out those in Germany against war, those dedicated for holding all those occupied yet revolting territories. Then, they had to maintain forces in west, north, east and south. North and south did not possess such a significant force but still it should be mentioned since it drained resources to at least some degree. Also, from certain point, bombing and transferring supplies, especially from north was constantly being thwarted, while for example USA keep producing like mad with not so much interruptions. After Russian transfer of production it was similar there, too. Germans should have lost the war much sooner than it started and then they should have lost in so many occasions. I think it was in book called “Day M” (I do not know English name for it) where they elaborated these exact thing, there were comparison of production capabilities and their usage, where German war staff was well aware of the potential USSR had and subsequently utilized. If you look at Germany at the start of war or even more years back and exclude propaganda and false economy growth, Germany was not in a position to wage such a war of such a scale. Yet they luckily made their own mistakes, leading to their downfall. UK for example, they were broken in half in several occasions and they did not finish them. Or the delays before Barbarossa, which could give Germans enough time to reach Moscow before winter. Yet they still managed to get in and terrorize such a part of world for so many years. Of course sometimes they only got luck in certain situations but if you compare the amount of fatal mistakes the Allies made and then the Germans, they handled relatively everything better.

              Btw, half of that comment was aimed at someone else, but since I was writing from cell phone (which is quite easily seen on that awful mistakes made in text), I somehow merged two replies to two different people in one comment.

            • The Germans have only themselves to blame for starting a fight way above their acutal means. Also, the other guy screwing up to a degree that beggars belief all by himself is in no way your merit – and once the Soviets recovered from the almost incomprehensible levels of initial losses and finally pulled their heads out of their asses they pretty much steamrolled the Germans right back to Berlin, the tempo of operations being mainly limited by the Usual Suspect of logistical buildups.

        • And, yes, the Soviet military manpower pool indeed was rather larger than the German. The latter first started becoming apprehensive of that fact when, AFAIK, during Barbarossa they realised they had *already destroyed* more enemy formations than their prior estimates suggested the Soviets could even raise…

    • Where do come from? Melmac? Must be – otherwise maybe where your brains are supposed to be is just an empty black hole.

  59. You (once again) “forgot” to correct some soviet-side myths, like this one. Interesting stuff about the so-called “superior” soviet tank design of the WW2:

    WWII Myths – T-34 Best Tank of the war:
    http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.de/2012/07/wwii-myths-t-34-best-tank-of-war.html

    As always, EnsignExpendable tells us one-sided bigoted stories. I don’t understand how a person, who lives in god’s country (USA), glorifies the Empire of Evil and bashes German tanks with a desperate passion.

    • There’s nothing to correct when this myth never existed in the first place, or at least I never saw people claiming it; the T-34 was a flawed tank, everyone, including people like me who appreciate Soviet tanks, know that, it was slated to get replaced by A-43 first and KV-13 or T-43 later, but disrupting production was a very bad thing to do in the USSR during wartime.
      > I don’t understand how a person, who lives in god’s country (USA), glorifies the Empire of Evil and bashes German tanks with a desperate passion.
      I would really like to understand the relation between living in America and “bashing” German tanks. Chieftain is American and he wrote a lot against those myths about the invincible panzers of Hitler’s armies… But trying to find a logic in something written by a guy who uses that hysterical bitch of McCarthy as avatar could be a lost cause.

      • And it’s nice to see that your linked article repeats the myths about Cold War Soviet armour based on the performance of the Middle Eastern countries.

      • True, but a lot of people in the countries of the former USSR still think that the WW2 soviet tanks where overall the best and superior tanks (of all nations). This might be true for most post-war tanks between 1950-1970, but definitely not for the soviet tanks during (especially in the early stages) WW2. So, it would be nice to show the readers of this blog that there are also some soviet-biased myths, which have to be corrected.

        By the way, I’m taking a strong anti-communist position and thus hate pro-soviet biased bitches like SerB and so on. So, I have no sympathy for a person who benefits from the great democracy and freedom in the USA and at the same time writes ones-sided, ideologically tainted (pro-soviet) stories.

        • Er, it was specifically in the early part of WW2 when the Soviet tanks were REALLY good. Their production didn’t yet suffer from the distruptions of the evacuations and more to the point the Germans were woefully short of weapons effective against the new nasties – even the 10,5cm howitzer, which had been the main antidote to the B1, proved to do Jock Shit to the KV.

          Lucky for the Germans the Soviet production of their new tanks had far outpaced their manufacture of spare parts, logistical support and just about everything else actually needed for military operations for them – up to and including *ammunition*, which is why KVs are recorded to have destroyed German guns and positions my the crude expedient of driving over them. Training of crews was at similar levels; apparently when Barbarossa started most were in fact same year’s conscripts fresh out of Basic and the Soviet commanders considered themselves lucky if the lot had even driven their new tanks at some point.

          It should come as no surprise that wasn’t exactly a recipe for success.

          By the by, hate Communism all you want but please do not make the mistake of letting that cloud your objectivity or, God forbid, confusing that with sympathising the Nazis. That’s what a lot of scared petite bourgeois types did in the Thirties with ugly results.

          • I read that article before, and it’s a poorly researched piece of crap. Frankly, Chris Intel should really just close shop given how bad his articles are.

            The main problem is that he’s just copying the arguments of operation barbarossa.net:

            http://operationbarbarossa.net/Myth-Busters/MythBusters2.html

            Which makes numerous false assumptions. High among them is the idea that the T-34 was the primary Soviet tank (the majority) in 41, 42, and 43.

            This actually isn’t true. Close examination of production records would show that at least 40% of tanks produced in this period was of light tanks – such as the T-70 and T-60. The bulk of the heavy Soviet losses were in fact incurred by these tanks; not the T-34.

            Finally, and most importantly, the article makes the classic mistake of ignoring the fact that Soviet losses are counted differently. A Soviet tank that is damaged enough to get sent to the factory is considered a “loss”. A German tank is only considered a loss when it is completely unrepairable.

  60. I would say much after war propaganda against germany and their tanks.
    Even american tankers said they couldnt damage a Tiger with their Shermans 75mm and i saw that in an US-documentation. hm!
    Just an example, i am sick to read the anti-myths further…

    • Those complaints stopped rather fast once they were out of the Bocage and could actually pin-and-flank the kitties you know.

  61. Very interesting. I like when I find soviet propaganda. You forgot another myth: It was thought before that 10000 StuGIII TDs killed around 30000 allied tanks. This has been debunked as well. It is apparently the other way around. Wonder SU76 and SU122 killed over 30000 German TDs. The german had crappy tanks, and didn’t do apparenlty any damage to the SUPERIOR SOVIET ARMOR, WHO ALSO HAD THE BEST OPTICS, GUNS, ARMOR, ENGINES, CREW, AND KNOWLEDGE OF NEUROSURGERY. Also, i forgot: The soviet rules!

  62. “Myth: The SS were an elite fighting force, especially their armoured divisions.”

    This “myth” needs further documented proof, not a forums posters name. Links are needed. I have read extensively on the SS and everything said on this “Myth” stood out like a steaming pile of shit.

    Most of the other Myths were correct but this one… smh.

    Please lookup and read the following books, educate yourself on this subject a little more, there is a lot of Anti-German bias in historical research if you find the wrong sources (Stephen Ambrose I’m looking at you).

    “Hitler’s Samurai” – Bruce Quarrie
    “Waffen SS – Hitler’s Black Guard at War” – Christopher Ailsby
    “The SS – Hitler’s Instrument of Terror” – Gordon Williamson
    “Armageddon” – Max Hastings
    “The Fall of Berlin 1945″ – Anthony Beevor

      • I’ve read at least one historian observe Bushido had the peculiar quality of at times looking like it was rather more concerned with dying for your master than actually winning, which admittedly sounds perfectly acceptable for feudal lords trying to keep their volatile and only too often disturbingly ambitious warrior-retainers in check.

        Ofc the bastardised bullshit version espoused by the Japanese ultranationalists then went full retard and pretty much degenerated into gratuitious death-fetishism…

        • Actually, the source that demonstrates how the SS routiney tripled their own kill claims IS there – it’s Wolfgang Scneider’s Tigers in Normandy.

          Also, Keegan has a very good book on the SS, which again demonstrates how 20 of the 30 SS Divisions were Volkstrum, and only 3 of the remainder were “okay”, but still not as good as say Grossdeutchland or Panzer-Lehr

          Making your recruitment priority “Retards who think blonde hair and blue eyes make them bulletproof” is how you routinely suffer 25% losses even against routing enemies.

  63. Guys, can’t blame SS for allowing this rabble to post articles here, look how many comments and probably hits he gets from this guy who flames everyone and pushes his clear agenda of making propaganda into fact. It is a little upsetting though disregarding people proving the propaganda posting nature of this individual and flaming said person does to the community.

    26 December 1991, one of the greatest days in the history of mankind.

    • “The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the breakdown of economic ties which followed, led to a severe economic crisis and catastrophic fall in the standards of living in the 1990s in post-Soviet states and the former Eastern Bloc, which was even worse than the Great Depression. ”
      Yes it was such a great day . I dunno where you live but I hope you suffer similarly you sadistic fuck .

      • From what I’ve read for a while in the former USSR local and regional adminstrators kept things vaguely running and the people mostly from starving amidst the general chaos by reverting to bilateral bartering along the lines of “you guys send us X tons of grain and we’ll ship you Y tons of clothes”…

        Also somewhat failing to see where the Sovereignly Democratic People’s Kleptocracy of Putinistan represents a major qualitative improvement.

    • Remind me to come and gloat when you lose your home and struggle to afford even a loaf of bread because your country collapsed.

      You, and all people like you, are disgusting sociopaths.

  64. i Bet most of this is pulled out of the russian forums. and we all know how the russians view their own preformance during ww2. SS should refer to other sources than wot forums for this kind of info.

  65. The stuff about the Ronson lighter is simply wrong. During the war the production they had was focused directly at the military including flame throwers and bomb fuses and of course the famous lighters. The actual slogan during the 40´s was “always lights the first time” and the British soldiers called the M4 the “Ronson”.

    • And British soldiers never practiced the better methods of ammunition storage, funny coincidence don’t you think?

      • Givan that such required basically redesigning the ammunition storage entirely, that had to wait until the late-war “wet storage” models. Notably German tanks actually had the exact same vulnerable storage solutions but never received similar fixes…

  66. This Blitzkrieg myth is a myth itself. No one said the germans made it, but they worked to make it to a real war doctrine, and there is nothing to do with this fact. I cant write this correctly in english, but read this book:

    Peter McCarthy, Mike Syron: Panzerkrieg

    Its a great book from how Guderian made the first armored and mechanised divisions, how he made this doctrine to the reality, and how these tactics served in the war.

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  68. Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote
    the book in it or something. I think that you could do with some pics to drive the message home a bit, but other
    than that, this is fantastic blog. An excellent read. I’ll definitely be back.

  69. I think everything said was actually very reasonable. But, what about this?
    suppose you were to write a awesome headline? I ain’t saying your information isn’t solid., but suppose you added a headline that grabbed a person’s attention?

    I mean Common Myths About WWII | For The Record is kinda boring.
    You ought to peek at Yahoo’s front page and note
    how they create post headlines to get viewers to open the links.

    You might add a related video or a related pic or two to
    grab readers excited about what you’ve got to say.
    Just my opinion, it could make your posts a little bit more interesting.

  70. Myth: Order #227 of the People’s Commissariat of Defense, nicknamed “Not One Step Back”, allowed for executions of Soviet soldier and officers without trial by commissars for retreating. > So, how about the NKVD blocking units executing retreating soldiers during battles? Any time for trial?

  71. Myth: The SS were an elite fighting force, especially their armoured divisions. > as posted by one commentator, the forum member who posted the “fact” has no credibility, viewing perception based on Western documentaries. He further claims that “most people focus on the three SS divisions that were LAH, Reich, and Totenkopf, which were equivalent to a Wehrmacht division at the best of times. The remaining SS divisions were barely Volkssturm quality.” What? They Zinegata, Brickfight (NA forums), claim that the other SS divisions were of volunteer’s quality? Oh no, no. They are referring to Waffen SS divisions, records show their capabilities in combat.