Over 6000 American tanks were lost in the European Theater of Operation. Over 3000 British tanks were lost in Northern Europe and hundreds of Canadian and French tanks were lost after the D Day invasions until VE Day. Now what knocked out all these tanks. Almost naturally we think that German Panzers account for at least a majority of these losses, but that isn’t the case. Real combat isn’t like WoT, there are many other things besides tanks that fight and kill tanks.
An American studies states that based off a sample of 12000+ Allied tank casualties from all theaters of WWII 54% of casualties were the result of gunfire. “Gunfire” includes tanks of course, but also includes AT Guns, StuGs, other SPGs, and artillery pieces. The incompleteness of records led to the report to only reference gunfire instead of breaking it down further into different percentages. The second biggest percent is AT mines at 20%. Noncombat reasons(being stuck in the mud, mechanical breakdown, etc.) was the 3rd highest cause at 13%. The figure of 13% is, in all likelihood, too low. The US and British Armies were more concerned with weapon damage, the Canadian Army and the USMC recorded “more accurate” percentages of 25% to 40% of casualties attributed to noncombat reasons. Hollow Charge weapons like the panzerfaust were the 4th highest cause at 7.5 %. The remaining 6.5% was everything from mortars to aircraft to satchel charges.
*A tank casualty/loss is a tank that is unavailable for movement in a battle area. More than half of all losses were repairable.
