rivetcounter

Comrade Pcomm, your posts are more like a north Korean new commentator, no one from any Allied army and I do mean no one knows what Wittmanns personal opinions were the simple reason for this Comrade no Allied personal ever spoke to him this is a fact, personally I have no doubt that he held Nazi belief’s as to what level or degree this has never been wrote about save by yourself Comrade.
To claim that Wittmann was killed earlier in a bombing raid and that this was covered up by the Germans beggars’ belief Comrade are you saying that the Germans managed to convince both Canadians and British Troops that they had killed this man, you Comrade are the only person in history to make this claim.

Comrade Pcomm you claim that 3rd Armour had little respect for Wittmann, I can’t see why, they didn’t have the honour of fighting against him, more over both sides had pure hatred of each other this is normal in conditions of war, are you really trying to tell us that Churchill/Montgomery sent Allied forces under there command to Europe with anything less than hatred of the enemy, as for fighting Tigers/Panthers my own Grandparents who did have to do this job never remembered it as anything other than cold blooded war they they preferred to forget, Commrade if any veteran of 3rd Armour ever heard the way you talk they would stick there boot up your Lilly lived ass for offending them the regiment and the fallen.
viel SpaĂź.

STO_118

Myth #1
The Greatest Tank of the Second
World War was the Tiger I.

The Tiger was a conglomeration of projects, as tank design often is, including those of the Sherman, Pershing, T-34 and the modern Challenger. All are made from bits and pieces from previous projects and sometimes completely different designs.

For it's size and weight the Tiger was a very mobile piece of equipment, it was able to keep pace with the Panzer III and IV which is what it was designed to do. Tigers were often used to breech Soviet defensive positions, recon in force so they were not just a defensive weapon.

As a tank it was a successful design that was still as deadly in 1945 as it was when first deployed. Few other tanks in the entire war can say the same.

Myth #2
The Panther was the Best All Around
Tank of the Second World War.

There were no pleas, Guderian sent a message saying they were being out gunned by Soviet tank forces and asked for the designers and the people in control to come to the Eastern Front and talk to the men about what was needed. The T-34 was re-designed and the German version was the VK3002 (DB), I believe it was also fitted with adieselengine. While the tank had great potential as well as the ability to be upgunned as needed it was seen too far a departure from current German design so the second design, the Panther won through.

Was the Panther plagued with reliability problems? Yes like nearly every tank design released during the war the tank had issues. The Panther had a very limited testing span to rule out these problems and many tanks had the same issues including the Soviet T-34 which used to hump it with spare transmissions and other parts on the motor deck. Did the Panther's reliability improve over time, yes it did. The "Shot trap" problem was resolved by a simple redesign.

None of the German tanks were designed for "long road marches" that is why they were all designed to meet railway width specifications. It was also one of the reasons petrol was chosen as the overall MPG wasn't a huge issue.

"the poor suspension design (interleaved road wheels)" The road wheel design helped reduce ground pressure. Less ground pressure means increased mobility. The German tanks were all fairly mobile vehicles with tight turning circles. The actual suspension design was torsion bar which was one of the best designs used long after WW2. The problem with the road wheel design was nothing to do with mobility or performance but one of servicing.

The tanks were not designed for balance, it is not a computer game. Each country had specific attributes for their designs based on their current armoured doctrine. Which is why the first German post war tank had good mobility and firepower but very little armour. Having a balance would mean less of everything. The difference being in modern tanks with lightweight armour systems, and civilian infrastructure designed to take weight can be better "balanced".

Myth #3
The Tiger II was the Most Influential
Tank of the Second World War.

And why was the IS-3 designed? I have never read, in the large number of publications I have actually read, those words so not sure where it came from. The Soviets knocked out some Tiger II's, by a T-34 85 but if it is the encounter you are talking about the Tiger II's were stopped at rest with the crews disembarked. Hardly compelling evidence that the tank was flawed.

The IS-3 had a good frontal ballistic shape but otherwise was a very poor design.

Myth #4
Michael Wittmann was the Greatest Tank
Commander of the Second World War.

Wittmann was a Panzer Ace, his abilities are not in question. He is famous for the battle Villars Bocage which was an immense risk taken by himself and an absolute shoddy example of poor military intelligence and leadership on the case of the British. Ultimately though, his actions there had little impact on the forthcoming battle or the area in general.

The cause of his death is mute, there is a lot of contradictory evidence and the true fact of the matter is, who really cares? I've never really understood peoples fascination with him.

You can't really compare tank kills between German and Allied forces for a couple of reasons. Most of the high tally Panzer Aces were stationed on the Eastern Front where the mass Soviet charge was in effect. A large number of these kills were made using superior tanks, although Wittman and Carius no doubt were able to take out a few AFV's in their respective StuG and 38(t) its unlikely a significant portion of their kills were made in them.

Very few allied vehicles were able to combat German tanks and for the most part they saw limited action with them. More HE shells were fired than AP, and many US tank destroyers were employed as gun batteries for infantry support rather for hunting out enemy armour.

The last point is that by the time they had AFV's capable of destroying enemy armour they already had air superiority.

One thing I will say is, while I do not think or would not say that all my customers are closet Nazi's. There does seem to be a very small portion of the hobby who are a little too into the SS. To the point where they will try to defend the various actions undertaken during the war.

This is not limited to the 1/16th scale but also to the 1/6th scale where SS insignia and uniforms sell out faster than the normal wehrmacht. I suspect these people would be into the SS even if they were not into tanks or military history.

Personally? I am a man, I like toys. I like guns, tanks, cars and computers. I like offshore oil installations. The people I am not so interested in. I am also keen on military history as it forms a very important part of the human race in general. From when we went out and bashed our neighbours in with clubs so to have more furry animals to ourselves to WW2 and beyond.

rcleo

Happy New Years rivetcounter, as to your stated opinion: "If any veteran of 3rd Armour ever heard the way you talk they would stick there boot up your Lilly lived ass for offending them the regiment and the fallen." (word should be livered, I think...LOL)

Maybe not so much...LOL. Anyway your side wore jack boots and go take a long walk off a short pier rivet, I understand you Superman guys can't swim. LOL.
_

Hey rivet, check this fact out about 3rd Armor and why your wrong! General Maurice Rose a WWII 3rd Armor United States Army general during World War II was the son and grandson of rabbis. General Rose was at the time the highest ranking Jew in the U.S. Army.



_

Keep in mind folks there are just 3 types of published WWII German military historians: the unrepentant young academic revisionist, the unrepentant German politican from the era and the unrepentant SS Nazi warrior.

So take all their words with a grain of salt when you read the German WWII books, LOL.

Found this article for rivetcounterfit at http://www.3ad.com/ under "Feature Index", kinda a postscript to WWII combat hatred:
_

FIGHTING FAIR and the SS by Frank Woolner WWII Journalist, Headquarters, 3rd Armored Division, 1990

Time dulls memory, but I am never going to forget a morning in Normandy when we were first introduced to wartime atrocity. This was at Argentan-Falaise. My early 703 tank-busters had already learned that combat was kill or be killed, but I think we all felt the combat would be waged decently.

As a matter of fact it was - where we bellied up to the average German soldier, the Luftwaffe, or even those tremendously efficient Kraut parachutists. Rommel's Palm-Tree brassard boys were tough customers, but if they captured one of us after a fire fight there was no summary execution; they grinned at us, offered a good meal, a glass of schnapps and good luck as a prisoner of war.

Not so the SS. These, until the very end when kids were drafted into the outfit sans indoctrination, were trained murderers. We got into atrocity and it escalated. I am not going to be a hypocrite and say that 3AD was innocent; the horror was *** for tat. Our own boys didn't start it.

On the morning recalled at Falaise, a German SS combat patrol came in and captured six of our boys. Just before dawn, after a night of routing light tanks through our leaguer, I was discussing the situation with a young officer named Jack Wissing.

Apparently, just after I left him to get some much needed rest in a slit trench, the SS patrol came in. Damned if I know why they succeeded, but the Krauts forever stated in their orders that Americans tended to be drowsy at dawn. Wissing wasn't sleepy; he was wide awake when I vacated the premises. Okay, we win some and we lose some.

But these black-shirted *******s took our shavetail and five other soldiers down behind the nearest hedgerow and murdered all but one with gunfire. The one was quick enough to run and escape. He told us all about it and the evidence was there.

I don't have any hard-on about the average German soldier; he was just doing a job as we were, but I'd still like to find those criminal SS and give them a dose of hot lead. All of those killed without need were my friends. The shavetail was our company's reconnaissance officer and because everybody was short-handed, although a buck-stripe sergeant, I was appointed to take his place as an acting recon officer.

Which I did, and nobody complained. It happened that I knew my maps and compass, and it happened that I was stupid enough to be unafraid when I should have been ****-scared. You old troopers know how it was; we obeyed orders and we goofed off whenever that seemed feasible. I make no excuses to my tank-buster early command or to Lt. Col. Barr; they knew all about me; they knew when I deserved a pat on the back or a kick in the rump.

The business at Fromental made us all atrocity-oriented. We didn't want to be, but how else do you react to animals who observe no rules? The guy who killed [Division Commander] Rose may have thought that the General was reaching for a pistol. The *******s who killed my friends knew that they were disarmed and helpless.

Spearhead brats may question, but we weren't very kind to the SS after that. Spearhead did not hurt Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, parachutists or Seemarine prisoners; we treated them well, swapped drinks and traded tall tales. No way with SS.

I want those people dead; they weren't fair fighters; they were murderers; and I will never excuse that. War itself is a form of murder and if we humans ever learn to reason together then this ancient curse may become stone-age history.

The allies were decent soldiers, as were most of the Germans who opposed us; we were all tough and hated to hurt the innocent. If I had to kill, then I will go to hell with blood on my hands - but I never scragged a helpless prisoner. Some of my colleagues did and, as a non-com, I closed my eyes and ears. The victims were always SS. We committed atrocities too, or call it instant justice where sub-human cretins were known to have slaughtered unnecessarily.

In Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge, these animals mowed down a whole raft of captured American artillery troops. I personally saw one instance in which they murdered Belgian men, women and children with blows from rifle butts. Make it very clear; the wrongdoers were almost always totenkopf SS. An old-timer, I harbor no hatred of the then Wehrmacht soldier; he was just like me - stuck into service and battling for his nation.

I know a few of them now; like me they throw their hands out and admit how wrong it all was. We can fish together like old friends. They are welcome visitors at my central Massachusetts barracks and they have urged me to visit a new Germany to talk about peaceful angling and sport shooting.


Perish the thought, but really now, the Soviet T-34 is considered the best tank of WWII by a majority of modern university military historians and even the shaky History Channel.

And what makes the jerry stuff so popular in the USA, maybe, because the Axis Armored Forces earned a really nasty, evil mystic and it has been that way since WWII ended.

WWII German Armor is like the tommy gunned mob hitman working for Chicago's Al Capone!

And for sure both sets of bad guys "were and are popular".

And i like the German Tiger II Heavy as my favorite WWII tank, but still the WWII SS is something to be despised.

Just my 2 cents.

rgallant

Funny how it always comes down to the same thing not so much discussion as shouting. As to whether Wittmann was a party member or not is irrelevant, same as whether Pool was an Republican or Democrat. If you are claiming Wittmann was SS and therefore automatically evil give it a rest, there are most certainly men of great evil who wore SS uniforms. But hardly everyman or even I suspect a majority of the combat troops, the post war propaganda made them into some kind elite conscienceless combat troops which they were not.

The OP's tank information is poorly researched, but does give us one important point German tanks were not the be all and end all. As noted by a previous poster it was the way they used the equipment, both on a crew level and all they way up.

As to Pool's score the actual types of vehicles seem to be pretty vague in most accounts. Some specify, for example 16 vehicles including SP guns tanks and personnel carriers, but no actual hard numbers so 1 tank, 15 halftracks/trucks not very impressive then.

Most certainly a good crew makes all the difference, as the commander is only one man. It is probably more important to recognize the skills rather than worry about numbers.

BIGMIG

Just for your'e info...If you can't see the difference between someone being a democrat or republican verses a SS member you may need some help with your world history studies.

I don't mind people disscusing tanks and the good or bad about any particular one of them when it comes to the machine itself.Even though we play with the toy models of them,i still know what the real ones were built for.They were not toys.Talk about them all you like.

But it is hard for me to sit by and say nothing when anyone tries to shine a good light on any german soldier involved with WWII no mater what branch of service he was involved with.

Some here seem to over look a little fact that Germany was not some inocent country trying to protect itself from some evil doer...

They were the Evil country who invaded....
1=Poland
2=Denmark
3=Norway
4=Belguim
5=netherlands
6=luxemburg
7=France
8=Chanel Islands
9=Greece
10=Yougoslavia
11=Soviet Union
12=Egypt
And Italy and Hungary.....

They were not the good guys helping out a neighbor............They were trying to take what was not theirs......

This did not happen out of the blue...the planing had been going on for years.

The cost of these Fanatics who planed on europien domination and beyond is as follows........

In Europe ( Estamated ) Dead......

Russia...20.6 million
Germany...6.85 million
Yougoslavia...1.7 million
Greece....520,000
United States.....400,000
Great Britian....388,000
And the list goes on and on.

There are a lot of us still around who grew up during these times and who had family members who where involved in this war in many ways both in some of the actual battles and those working in the various war material supply and manufacture facilities producing supplies for the war effort.

Germany had no shortage of fanatics.........they were not the inocent party here.....They got their "ASS KICKED" and the german people of today have to live with their past........

BIGMIG

P.S. Some here seem to over look the fact that for the USA we also had to deal with the other half of WWII===Japan....The world didn't just revolve around Europe...

rivetcounter

Poland was invaded simultaneously by Russia and Germany though the act of Russia was ignored and we went to war with Germany shortly after Russia executed the entire Polish officer ranks from Sargent upwards again this was ignored.

It’s also completely ignored that England also fought the Japanese, and played a major part in there defeat as did Australia and New Zealand, My wife’s Grandfather fought the Germans in 1939 was evacuated from Dunkirk then spent the rest of the war fighting in Burma, very few original members of his regiment survived.

As for who invaded who none of the Allied forces are innocent including France, England, Russia, America all have invaded and occupied foreign countries all have committed war crimes maybe not as large as Germany but a war crime is a war crime, Pcomm was telling us how great 3rd Armour was he was also skirting the Rose incident in which General Rose was killed in action, the following day American troops responded by executing over 100 unarmed German POW’s no doubt Pcomm thinks this is acceptable but at the end of the day it’s a war crime and makes the troops that committed it as bad as the SS, there can be no justification of any country’s troops killing unarmed POW’s whether it was Germans, English or any other country, and worse still the film industry trying to justify these action’s

I was told of Allied personnel committing war crimes right from the beginning 1939 this person was at least an eye witness as was his CO the incident was never investigated an no one was ever charged just like the many thousands of other Allied war crimes

“History is written by the victors.”
Winston S. Churchill

rcleo

rivetcounter is right in that *** for tat unlawful warfare is disgusting and difficult to defend:

Worst WWII Allied ETOSin: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden.htm


In 1941 Charles Portal of the British Air Staff advocated that entire cities and towns should be bombed. Portal claimed that this would quickly bring about the collapse of civilian morale in Germany. Air Marshall Arthur Harris agreed and when he became head of RAF Bomber Command in February 1942, he introduced a policy of area bombing (known in Germany as terror bombing) where entire cities and towns were targeted.

One tactic used by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force was the creation offirestorms. This was achieved by dropping incendiary bombs, filled with highly combustible chemicals such as magnesium, phosphorus or petroleum jelly (napalm), in clusters over a specific target. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area, become extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire.

In 1945, Arthur Harris decided to create a firestorm in the medieval city of Dresden. He considered it a good target as it had not been attacked during the war and was virtually undefended by anti-aircraft guns. The population of the city was now far greater than the normal 650,000 due to the large numbers of refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army.

On the 13th February 1945, 773 Avro Lancasters bombed Dresden. During the next two days the USAAF sent over 527 heavy bombers to follow up the RAF attack. Dresden was nearly totally destroyed. As a result of the firestorm it was afterwards impossible to count the number of victims. Recent research suggest that 35,000 were killed but some German sources have argued that it was over 100,000.


rivet postscript myth buster "all have invaded and occupied foreign countries all have committed war crimes maybe not as large as Germany".

FYI: America was less a WWII military invader than a cop called upon by Russia, England and the rest of the FREE world to help arrest a bunch of crooked stealing 1940's German mugs who roared in to someone elses countries to kill, blunder, steal and take up residence!

That is the most important point about why Whittman fought, he stated he could see owning a big farm in Russia after the war and getting that wealth by conquering Soviet territory. USATank Ace Poole on the other hand went to the ETO to make GOOD Christians out of WWII krauts and then go home.

BIGDEFERENCE in purpose rivet! That is why SS Whittman is evil purposed and Poole is good purposed, or did you miss that instruction day in kindergarten class rivet?

Plus, the USAat considerable cost in US lives and money helped toss the WWII krauts crooks out of the invaded, butchered countries and then the majority of USA troops went home and never came back.

And the USA created the Marshell Plan to save your poverty stricken post WWII German butts from starving and worked to turn your collective kraut tails into a free country:

http://www.marshallfoundation.org/TheMarshallPlan.htm

Say thank you USA.



Now read this book and we will all have something new to argue about, how to really fight rc tanks:

http://www.amazon.com/Panzer-Tactics.../dp/0811732444

This book should be required reading for every tank club battle participant, to better gain a grain of authenticity at play.



Seems Winston's thought did not hold true. The modern German writes a lot of inaccurate revisionist WWII history.

A better quote: A history book is like a mirror. If an ass looks in, no prophet can peer out. Jay Luvaas

rgallant

in response to BIGMIG

Yes we do My father in 1st Hussars Canadian D-day + 1 and Korea

My uncle Heinz Kriegsmarine 1940 to wars end, did not enjoy 1944 onwards when he got to shoot at tanks spent

Dad and him became the greatest of friends after the war.

And just to end my comments how about the Japanese Interment West Coast of North America, Canadian and American citizens put in "Concentration Camps" in quotes because I use it has originally used by the British when they concentrated Boers in one place for control. Property and assets seized and sold, some of whom had family fighting for the US and Canada. For no reason other than race, not a shining moment for the allies. And how about all the foreign possessions the US kept after the war, you can find incidents on all sides.

The big brush paints everyone, you need to reflect and accept there was evil and evil intent on all sides and there were men who were just soldiers and fought not matter what flag they fought under.

But this has gone way off topic, and I have no wish to start tossing who committed more evil during that war or any other.

Ronan87

rgallant makes some very good points that i would think is common knowledge. But a great man once said that common knowledge... isn't so common.

So here goes...

@BIGMIG

That's one VERY broad brush stroke there!

I would look at your own country (and it's recent military actions) before i go judging other's.

By your statement, i hope you are ready to condem every single US soldier involve in the past few wars...


I lost family in France to WWII. One of them because he was a teacher, and some of his students were Jewish. They took the kids and the families... and him. We never heard of him again.

Do i blame Germany? No.
Do i blame all German soldiers? No.
Do i blame the National Socialist German Worker's Party? Yes.
Do i blame the SS? Yes.

Did you know that the average german citizen had NO idea what was happening? They were busy starving to death.
Did you also know that most soldiers were conditioned (brainwashed) to think that they were doing the right thing?
Did you know that 99% of TV documentaries and movies you saw about WWII are a VERY BAD attempt to recall 'the big story', but are mostly biased on one side of the conflict (and usually how America saved everyone, mostly ignoring the French resistance, the Canadians, the British and even the Widerstands (You know... the germans fighting Hitler).

BIGMIG

Amazzzzing..........

A response to you two would be like giving a Chemistry set to an Ape............A waste of time.


BIGMIG

Ronan87

So instead of a discussion where you are given the chance to back up your wide brush claim, to show everyone you aren't an idiot generalizing, you resort to insults.

Spare us and do not bother replying... :/

Easy8

To rivetcounter, no reason can be found in to debating a foolish nincompoop.

And a better quote for WWII: A history book is like a mirror. If an ass looks in, no prophet can peer out.

Jay Luvaas (one of America’s leading military historians)

rivetcounter

Jay who????? Never heard of him, if you are talking of Churchill he was the finest war time leader of his age.

tomhugill

I wouldn't waste your time responding to him mark, it's a matter of new name same troll....

rivetcounter

This wouldn’t be Pcomm by any chance would it, when did he move to Canada