Interesting WWII facts

[JFC]

Britain actually started WWII. This was because Germany's refusal to withdraw from Poland drew the then Empire into conflict.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

[QUOTE=Warluster]

What about Pearl harbour?

Mainland American military installation.

[Geezer57]

He said "mainland America". Hawaii (where I was born, BTW) definitely isn't part of the mainland.

EDIT: simultaneous posts with Evil Maniac!

[Pontifex Rex]

Yes, that was interesting, i did a speech..., another interesting one i had was that the soviet union downed more German planes by ramming them than shooting them.

I hope it was fantasy convention because that is absolute nonsense.

The Red Airforce destroyed something more than 10,000 German aircraft between June 1941 and May 1945,...they most certainly did not ram over 5,000 aircraft. There was no need to ram simply because the Red Airforce, like the Red Army, gained in experience and received newer and better equipment as the war went on and were perfectly capable of shooting down German aircraft. Other posters are correct about a lot of this being nonsense.

In regards to German kill verification, iirc, they had the most stringent 'confirmation' sytem of any airforce. I tend to trust the claim of their best pilots but that does not change the fact that they simply fought more often and thus scored more kills. Hartmann, for example, flew from the second half of 42 through 45 almost non-stop.

[Pontifex Rex]

Was pokryshkin the Soviets top ace? Because he looks small when compared with the top luftwaffe pilots. There are 36 known luftwaffe pilots with over 100 kills. Also three japanese pilots that had over 60 kills and even two pilots from finland with over 75 kills. Even though the U.S.'s top pilot only had 40 kills. We didn't fight in the war as long you the others and most of the great air battles were past.

Again, like other have posted the reason allied aces did not score as many kills was simply because they did not fly as many missions. Once a pilot reached 'X' number of missions or 'y' number of kills they were withdrawn to training schools or administrative duties. From a propaganda perspective they were worth more alive then as dead heros

[Pontifex Rex]

Lastly, one cannot discount the effects of inflated scores - either for propaganda or the usual over-claiming (as happened in all AF's). H-J Marseilles was meant to have shot down 17 RAF aircraft in one day in N.Africa, yet RAF records show they never lost a single plane that day.....

Rudel's claims about the effectiveness of his tank buster and the "tank kills" have also been called into question by archivists who cannot reconcile the claims with unit losses in the old Soviet archives.

[Pontifex Rex]

It is important to realize that there is a huge difference between what was published by the old Soviet regime and what has come to light after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Before the collapse, much of the published work did not pass the 'smell test' and was clearly propaganda. The most famous of these has to be the Kursk "Tank Battle" at Prokhorovka on July 12th, which has been totally debunked by authors with access to the archives previously never released to western authors.

Prokhorovka now fits more into the fantasy realms than it does history.

[hoom]

Britain actually started WWII

The NZ government screwed up the timezones & actually declared war several hours before the UK

[Kraxis]

Rudel's claims about the effectiveness of his tank buster and the "tank kills" have also been called into question by archivists who cannot reconcile the claims with unit losses in the old Soviet archives.

I'm not surprised that he didn't bust up 519 tanks, given how the second best scorer had just a bit more than 100 to his credit But there are a whole lot of pilots with around 100 kills), but he most certainly bagged himself a whole lot of tanks. Everybody around him agreed that he was a most superb flyer and marksman and when he attacked a tank, most often it did get destroyed. So anywhere from 200 to 500 is my guess. And since there was an official prize on his head, and a big one too, I suppose the Russians knew exactly how dangerous he was.

Hartmann flew 825 missions... That is about once every day. And he made a kill about every two and a half days. With the density of enemies, his posting to JG52, and his inherent abilities he could certainly achieve this. He spent almost a year learning from the old aces (Edmund “Paule” Rossmann his section leader, Alfred Grislawski, Walter Krupinski) before he began to rack up the kills during Zitadelle. Combined with his fighterschool attendance he spent almost two entire years learning to become an ace. He wasn't better because he was German, he was better because he had the skills, the right teachers and the time to learn it all.

[Geezer57]

The most famous of these has to be the Kursk "Tank Battle" at Prokhorovka on July 12th, which has been totally debunked by authors with access to the archives previously never released to western authors.

Now you've got me curious - do you mean there wasn't a massive tank battle at Prokhorovka, or that the casualty claims were exaggerated? A few details, please.

[Kraxis]

Now you've got me curious - do you mean there wasn't a massive tank battle at Prokhorovka, or that the casualty claims were exaggerated? A few details, please.

There was a clash... But the Russians got crushed. Litterally. 32 German tank were knocked out to 259 Russian, of the German only 7 were destroyed!

I suggest you look at this article.
http://www.uni.edu/~licari/citadel.htm

[Pontifex Rex]

Now you've got me curious - do you mean there wasn't a massive tank battle at Prokhorovka, or that the casualty claims were exaggerated? A few details, please.

Kraxis (and the essay) has it pretty much correct. Its close enough to the truth to not bother quibbling over minor details.

The old myth goes something like this:

On the morning of the July 12th the SS Pz Corps rolled out with some 700 tanks, of which 100 were Tigers, to breakthrough what they thought were the last of Red Army defenses.

Coming the other way was the 850 tanks of the 5th Tank Army armed with T-34s and KV tanks.

The two armoured phalanxes came together outside Prokhorovka on a battlefield only 5 miles wide (between a rail line and the River Psel) with the Rusiians charging down a slope into a giant "tank melee". Much writing about tanks ramming, swirling dust,...armageddon.

....and poppycock.

So,...why is the myth nonsense? Look at the numbers,...700 German tanks in the SS Corps. The SS Pz Corps did not have that many tanks at the start of the battle and certainly did not have that many 7 days after the offensive began. 100 Tigers? There were not that many servicable Tigers available to all the units in the southern arm of the attack and none at all with the northern arm (not counting the useless "Elephants"). 850 Red Army tanks of T-34s and KVs? Nope,....about 500 tanks with about 30% or so being light tanks (quite useless in a 1943 tank battle) and no KVs at all (but they did have 35 Churchill tanks nearby).


What actually happened is that some 110-115 German tanks and AG/TDs (with perhaps a 1/2 dozen Tigers, iirc) of the 1st SS Pz Div moved out from their positions just west of the town and were met by a counterattack by two tanks corps (roughly 500 tanks) of the 5th Tank Army. The counterattack brought the Germans almost to an immediate halt and began to drive them back a bit.

Rather than a solid phalanx of Red Army tanks the Russians came on in uncoordinated groups. There was no melee, both sides made use of AT guns, artillery and infantry. Anyway, with the Germans adopting a defensive stance, and supported by AG/TDs they were able to kill a lot of Russian tanks, even though about 1/3 were light T-70s.

By the end of the battle the Red Army lost some 200 odd tanks (+/-) to the German 35 (+/-) or about a 6-7:1 ratio. This equalled about 33% of German tanks committed and about 40-50% of the Russian tanks. Some pro-German writers (amateur and professional) like to think that if they had kept going they would have broken through but this is wishful thinking. They had no where to go and the Red Army still had uncommitted reserves to the north, south and east of the fighting. The Russians also had the Stavka reserve.

A tactical win for the Germans but an operational and strategic defeat.

This one hung on for a long, long time and some still believe it.

Cheers.

[Kraxis]

The old myth goes something like this:

On the morning of the July 12th the SS Pz Corps rolled out with some 700 tanks, of which 100 were Tigers, to breakthrough what they thought were the last of Red Army defenses.

Coming the other way was the 850 tanks of the 5th Tank Army armed with T-34s and KV tanks.

The two armoured phalanxes came together outside Prokhorovka on a battlefield only 5 miles wide (between a rail line and the River Psel) with the Rusiians charging down a slope into a giant "tank melee". Much writing about tanks ramming, swirling dust,...armageddon.

....and poppycock.

Not to forget the everpresent "and to their horror the German crews of the mighty Tigers and Panthers found out that their armour could be penetrated at these ranges, and that their turrets revolved too slowly."

Well, I would say that any tanker knows that at 100 meters or less his armours is not going to be enough in many, if not most cases. So they would not have been surprised to find out about such (German tactics were even to keep as much distance as possible to Russian and Allied tanks). Even if they had thoughts that prior to Zitadelle, they wouldhave known after day 1 where they had encountered plenty dug-in AT-guns with orders only to fire a point blank range.
Further, while the Tiger had a fairly slowly revolving turret, the Panther was faster. The Tiger was meant a breakthrough tank, thus it's enemies were at the front, while th Panther was meant to be a tank of maneuver as much. So it could find it's enemies all around mostly. Would be foolish to give it a slow turret (it is in any case).
Further, while the T-34 (I'm not going to deal with T-70s, too light) technically had a faster turret, in practice it wasn't. It was handcrancked to the German electrical system (thus the poor gunner could easily get exhausted), and it's turret seats were not connected to the turretbasket, instead they were bolted onto the sides of the hull. So the gunner would have to stand up and move about while he crancked the turret around, while falling over the poor loader who was picking up rounds from under the floor (brilliant feature of the T-34, keep all the ammo under the deck ).
The PzIV had comparable speeds to the Panther.

So technically the T-34 should win a turret turnfest, but in practice the Panther and PzIV would win.

[Geezer57]

A tactical win for the Germans but an operational and strategic defeat.

This one hung on for a long, long time and some still believe it.

Cheers.

Thanks a bunch for that info - it seems like all those Kursk/Prokhorovka senarios in my old board wargames were based on propaganda fantasies, eh?

[Kraxis]

Thanks a bunch for that info - it seems like all those Kursk/Prokhorovka senarios in my old board wargames were based on propaganda fantasies, eh?

Well, the movements of the forces afterwards fitted fairly nicely, so it was easy to believe if you didn't dig deep into it.
And the massive ironing board tankbattle, unaffected by other factors, is a very alluring picture. No wonder it has been kept alive, we all want it to be true.

To answer your question shortly: Yes, but it is understandable. Keep on using it as it is a good setup. Just think of it as a hypothetical situation.

[Flavius Clemens]

The mention of Bob Stanford Tuck reminds me of a story from his biography. Early in the Battle of Britain, when his squadron was stationed away from the main areas of battle, he was chasing a German bomber, but was only able to get off a burst of fire at long range. He did little damage, but the bomber ditched its load and headed for home. The bombs fell on an army camp, causing one fatality - Tuck's own brother in law.

[Kraxis]

The mention of Bob Stanford Tuck reminds me of a story from his biography. Early in the Battle of Britain, when his squadron was stationed away from the main areas of battle, he was chasing a German bomber, but was only able to get off a burst of fire at long range. He did little damage, but the bomber ditched its load and headed for home. The bombs fell on an army camp, causing one fatality - Tuck's own brother in law.

Ouch! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

[Slartibardfast]

The Japanese landed an infantry platoon in the Kimberly region as the first step of the invansion of Australian.

The platoon was supposed land, locate and clear a specified coastal location as a landing strip for the advance base.

Their maps were fataly inacurate and becoming lost they took shelter in a headland cave in which they, lacking drinking water and other essential supplies, and being unfamiliar with the flaura and fauna of the area eventually starved to death.

Interestingly to the local tribesmen, who were very aware of the JIF presence within their tribal grounds, the area was the equivelent of the local supermarket, with an abundance of both fresh water and food within a half hour walk of the cave.

Military Maxim : Remember the 6P's (or PPPPPP)
Prior Preperation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

[Pontifex Rex]

Further, while the Tiger had a fairly slowly revolving turret, the Panther was faster... <snip>...So technically the T-34 should win a turret turnfest, but in practice the Panther and PzIV would win.

Hmmm,... I'm not too sure I'd agree with all of this (but the bit about the fixed seats in the T34 is spot on), The T34/M40, M41 and 43 models had an electric motor that could spin the turret 360 degrees in roughly 14 seconds (but the turret control did not allow for fine adjustments, thus the gunner need to switch to hand operation, the T-34/85 also had an electric motor but took about 21 secons.

On the German side we have the have the problem that turrets were more often than not completely out of balance and thus made power 'training' (using the motor to zero in) almost impossible

Pz IV - Electric motor; 25 seconds
Panther D - Hydraulic motor; 60 seconds
Panther G - Hydraulic motor; 18 seconds
Pz IV - Electric motor; 25 seconds
Tiger I - Hydraulic motor; 60 seconds
Tiger II used the main engine to drive its hydraulic motor but it came at a cost - Hydraulic motor; 10 seconds @ 3000rpm but this could damage the engine, or 19 seconds @ 2000 rpm

Sherman and Pershing came in at around 15 seconds, while the British Crusader could traverse in 10 seconds, Cromwell in 15, Comet in 24.

[Pontifex Rex]

Thanks a bunch for that info - it seems like all those Kursk/Prokhorovka senarios in my old board wargames were based on propaganda fantasies, eh?

If you play ASL there is one scenario that is part fantasy part reality,...it has the units right but too many Tigers and resembles the old "clash or armour" a bit too much. Still it is a fun scenario and could be repesenative of of many other tank battles in 1943.