Ostheer Update 6: Ostheer Army Troops

I heard the panther was more reliable than even the P4 but it was far harder to change parts/repair when it did break down?

GodlikeDennis wrote:
I heard the panther was more reliable than even the P4 but it was far harder to change parts/repair when it did break down?

[tt]"tick"[/tt]

Ruddersmarine wrote:
The German tanks were best used defensively. e.g the only major German offensive in the west (the Bulge) was lead by Pz4's cos they were more reliable

Has it every occured to you that they may not have had many of them available at the time. Remember that there was the red tide in the east, couldn't it just been that they couldn't spare any for the west?

Reliability depends a lot on the availability of spare parts. A massive reliable supply structure makes even an M1 Abrams 'reliable'
Panther was a more complex machine meaning there were usually more things that you need to have a spare part for and at a time where German Industrial capacity was pummeled to the ground....it was a bit harder to get them.
That doesn't make the tank itself unreliable. On the contrary, german tanks in combat would take more punishment before suffering mechanical failures.

Panther 'unreliability' was more of a myth based on the poor showing of the very first 200 tanks produced and pushed into combat in Kursk before the issues had been ironed out

Haha, sounds like the Xbox 360. ;D >:(

@Zersto:rer
I wouldn't call almost seven brigades forming number of vehicles' rather poor performance a myth, - that's safe enough to form a firm opinion about a tank. I'm not arguing it was, in fact, improved later on though.

200 first production tanks that hadn't been put through the tests enough to clear the most basic 'teething' problems and pushed into the most vigorous/demanding tank battle ever...I'd call that the stupidest thing ever and certainly where the 'myth' came from. Anyone claiming the panthers were unreliable refers to that example.
Soviets praised and valued Panthers above any other tank which is why they kept captured ones in special units, regularly serviced and given to the best tank crews as reward. That's not a credit even given to Tigers...anyways....its all rather irrelevant to the game :)

Let's put it this way: the debut model was such a failure, that it unfairly passed its reputation onto ones, produced later on. But its poor reliability is certainly not a myth.
Panther, when it was improved, became a very well-made, and quite reliable "medium" tank, though it's rather to be included it into the heavy category, fallowing the common sense, where it surely doesn't take the first prize.
Not that it means anything anyway.

+1
Another reason for all German tanks decreased reliability later in the war  was the need to use a mixture of petrol and ammonia to increase the range because of shortages, this wrecked the engines and filters after prolonged use, and as Zerstorer says if they didn't have spare parts they had to blow up the tanks.

1. soviet soldiers were told to use captured panthers whenever possible
2. while those first panthers were rushed into battle and had tech problems they still showed some of their potential. the version G of the panther is considered to be the best medium WW2 tank of all

All of the German Panzers rushed into battle had problems on debut. Afterwards most reliability problems were fixed but the leading cause of tiger deaths was either break downs or air attacks.

Versedhorison wrote:
All of the German Panzers rushed into battle had problems on debut. Afterwards most reliability problems were fixed but the leading cause of tiger deaths was either break downs or air attacks.

One should never underestimate/overestimate the properties of particular model of a tank.
As an example: there's a relatively large number of german tank aces compared to that of soviet, or allied moreover. Why is it? A dumb person would suggest, that germans were simply "better with tank training". However, this is absolutely untrue - when T-34s were a sort of "tigers" of the time (that would be 1941-42), there was a soviet tank ace, who scored over 50 german tanks (let alone ACs and the rest of 'em) in just two months.
So, surely german tanks were more viable, and yielded more firepower, but one should think of it that way: you can build ten good tanks, or two superb ones. What would you prefer? - This is all about balancing between production time + resource cost + upkeep and repair issues / battle effectiveness.

If that is the case, then have you ever heard of Otto Carius? His Tiger's went up against ISU-152s and IS-2s. Both of those have better armor, armament, and better engines. You cannot say that the tiger was "superior" in that instance. The crews though, yes.

That's just ONE man, so it absolutely of no representative value at all, you know.
Besides, that's just late war looser-fascist propaganda, AFAIK. The only way he could do it in RL (if he ever actually did) is to destroy all those vehicles when those were out of battle stance (i.e. transported via railroad, on a platform, or something alike).

He was an example, and he's not the only one. There have been plenty of times when such things happened. And it is not propaganda. I read books written by soldiers and tankers who have seen it themselves. And the tanks that T-34 (w/50 kills) you mentioned was most likely battling tanks like the Panzer 38(t) and the like, which is nothing like a T-34 compared to a Tiger. If I am wrong in this(previous sentence) tell me.

Last edited May 7, 2011 at 3:53 AM by Goober

Goober wrote:
If that is the case, then have you ever heard of Otto Carius? His Tiger's went up against ISU-152s and IS-2s. Both of those have better armor, armament, and better engines. You cannot say that the tiger was "superior" in that instance. The crews though, yes.

When u would have read (or talk with) Otto Carius u could know that he had surprised this IS-2 and ISU-152 tanks ;) They were part of the 1st russian tank brigade Josef Stalin. After destroying a StuG-Abteilung at a small town near Daugavpils (Dünaburg) the russian tank brigade make a rest. During this rest Carius and a second Tiger rushed in full speed into this town and destroyed IS-2 and other tanks by surprise and from very low distance. Some historians call this battle "Villers Bocage of the east". Carius got the knight cross for this action.
So it was a special situation u cant use for common battle situations ^^

But in fact we can discuss till doomsday here. Fact is - like Zerstörer said - its all irrelevant to the game  ;)

"Villers-Bocage of the East" - this is going to be my next map  :D

Lord wrote:

Goober wrote:
If that is the case, then have you ever heard of Otto Carius? His Tiger's went up against ISU-152s and IS-2s. Both of those have better armor, armament, and better engines. You cannot say that the tiger was "superior" in that instance. The crews though, yes.

When u would have read (or talk with) Otto Carius u could know that he had surprised this IS-2 and ISU-152 tanks ;) They were part of the 1st russian tank brigade Josef Stalin. After destroying a StuG-Abteilung at a small town near Daugavpils (Dünaburg) the russian tank brigade make a rest. During this rest Carius and a second Tiger rushed in full speed into this town and destroyed IS-2 and other tanks by surprise and from very low distance. Some historians call this battle "Villers Bocage of the east". Carius got the knight cross for this action.
So it was a special situation u cant use for common battle situations ^^

But in fact we can discuss till doomsday here. Fact is - like Zerstörer said - its all irrelevant to the game  ;)

Yes I had read of that, but that wasn't what I was talking about actually. I was talking about other times, in battle. I was just trying to prove to IJoe that it wasn't so much the vehicle, like he said, but the crew. Plenty of Tigers with idiots for commander were slaughtered. But I will stop discussing this, It is as you say irreverent to the game. This is probably something to be discussed on the history forum(there is one right?)

Last edited May 7, 2011 at 2:40 PM by Goober

See here:
http://easternfront.org/forums/index.php?board=7.0

cephalos wrote:
"Villers-Bocage of the East" - this is going to be my next map  :D

http://easternfront.org/forums/index.php?topic=488.0  ;)

I just have to rework splats and all this little detail stuff ^^
All in all this map is finished by a long time.

...
why it's not released?  :( another time maybe...

pariah wrote:
See here:
http://easternfront.org/forums/index.php?board=7.0

Thanks!

I think, this is intresting:
http://tankkk.narod.ru/voina.html

I think it would be more interesting if it wasn't in such a cool language. ;) Think you could give us unfortunate Englishers the gist of it?

pariah wrote:
I think it would be more interesting if it wasn't in such a cool language. ;) Think you could give us unfortunate Englishers the gist of it?

That's my friendly advice, and suggestion:
Use some translator tool. I wouldn't expect anyone to spend his while translating all this info (I'm judging by myself).

Here is it using Google Chrome translator. Sorry, it will be hard to understand:

Edit by Zerstörer :Next time please post a link if you have to. Not a 10 page translated essay. i'm sure anyone can use the google translator and it's automatic.

And for the record, IS2 was far from amazing. 2-3 rounds a minute is apauling, and carrying 28 rounds in total is pretty pathetic and wouldn't last more than 20-30 min in combat. Ammo was exposed and cooked off easily. Also, what is forgotten is that a Tiger1 had amost a 1to1 with/length ratio making turning the tank alot easier + neutral gear. The Tiger2 on the other hand was the first tank to be equiped with the ability to reverse on track while the second one was running forwards also making it very accurate and agile. The proof is that during the Ardenes Offensive, not one of them had any problems traversing what is considered the worse terrain for tanks. German crews considered the tigers more nimble than the IS

Last edited May 9, 2011 at 3:57 PM by Zerstörer

Thanks, but i think it was a little excessive to post all of it. ;)

haha yeah I actually read it too. I translator did that? it wasnt that bad

pariah wrote:
Thanks, but i think it was a little excessive to post all of it. ;)

Sorry about that. I probably  should have trimmed it down a bit.  :)

sorry but i couldn't take that site seriuosly. while it was chalk full of tech. data, it was oviously made by a pro russian person. they made the soviet tanks seem like gods and the germans like bums. while i can see the late war soviet tanks as better than the germans due to their uninterupted production, research, and resources. but correct me if i'm wrong but didn't the germans have a better kill to knokout ratio than the russians? dosen't that prove something, if not that the germans had better crews, tech, or weapons. sure they lost but they took alot of soviets with them to the gates of hell.

Yes you are right. Some of the Russian tank were superior but there average crews were not. One major reason was the lack of radios in their tanks, making communication between tanks hard. But this should probably be got after at the history forum.

GATHRAWN wrote:
correct me if i'm wrong but didn't the germans have a better kill to knokout ratio than the russians? dosen't that prove something,

One thing I like to remind people of; your kill to death ratio counts for nothing if you have been defeated.

Thats a matter of opinion....

opinion - philosophy, call it what you would.  :)

But the fact remains the same, the victor dictates history.

Last edited May 9, 2011 at 6:26 AM by RedGuard

GATHRAWN wrote:
correct me if i'm wrong but didn't the germans have a better kill to knokout ratio than the russians? dosen't that prove something,

don't forget that the germans were mostly fighting out of defensive positions, while the russians were attacking. 

Ghost wrote:

GATHRAWN wrote:
correct me if i'm wrong but didn't the germans have a better kill to knokout ratio than the russians? dosen't that prove something,

don't forget that the germans were mostly fighting out of defensive positions, while the russians were attacking.

41-43 it was the germans 43-45 the soviets....I'd say it was mostly the other way around

But, gents all this 'historical adventures' must come to an end as they are...once again....irrelevant to this topic ;D

The panther is widely considered to be one of the best in WW2. Early versions suffered  from mechanical problems, borne from lack of proper testing.

Panzerkampfwagon Ausf G was very reliable, having 2953 built, it was a great success compared to D and A.(D being the Bad Broken models.)

Seeme wrote:
The panther is widely considered to be one of the best in WW2. Early versions suffered  from mechanical problems, borne from lack of proper testing.

Panzerkampfwagon Ausf G was very reliable, having 2953 built, it was a great success compared to D and A.(D being the Bad Broken models.)

...Which means what, exactly, to Company Of Heroes? ;)

pariah wrote:

Seeme wrote:
The panther is widely considered to be one of the best in WW2. Early versions suffered  from mechanical problems, borne from lack of proper testing.

Panzerkampfwagon Ausf G was very reliable, having 2953 built, it was a great success compared to D and A.(D being the Bad Broken models.)

...Which means what, exactly, to Company Of Heroes? ;)

That our panthers rocks :P. Seriously i think this topic has come to it's end. I'll close it now, but don't be sad, on a few days the next Sneaky peaky will be posted.