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[Lord Shonus]

But without McNair & CO they could have had the gun in more tanks and earlier, and to the best of my knowledge the 75 mm and 76 mm versions were produced side by side for months at least.

No, they could not. Mounting the 76mm involved taking a turret from an entirely different tank project (the T20, intended to replace the M4 but abandoned because it would take too long to get into service) and redesigning it to work with the Sherman hull - a massive task (it's more than just fitting in the turret ring, balance is critically important and you have to worry about things like crew or service hatches and fueling points.) After that, like any new weapon there were significant teething problems. Mounting the 76mm took months of work because it genuinely needed months of work, all for a weapon that nobody was asking for. The guys in the tanks were perfectly happy with what they had, their officers liked how easy the logistics were, and there was no "we need a better gun!" until well after the 76mm was in exclusive production (the only 75mm tanks produced after May of 1944 were intended for Lend-Lease, as the Soviets were quite content with their 75mm Shermans and already had too many different calibers in service as it was). The entire upgrade project was based on "the gun we have is just good enough - we should get a better one in play, just in case." Getting the M4A1 76mm (or the M26 Pershing) in service any earlier was impossible due to technical reasons, not "Macnair sabotaged the tanks in favor of TDs".

[Kot]

Heres a table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.92%C3%9757mm_Mauser#/media/File:Karabiner_98k_ballistics.png

It used/uses the same ammo as the standard Karabiner 98k: 7.92x57 Mauser. Values are apparently for 600 mm barrel, FG 40 had 500 mm barrel so withdraw x % from the values. Didnt even need to open a book.

Screw it, I'll try to find something for you.

Someone fucked up a bit here.
If it was so easy and I meant FG42, I wouldn't even ask, this is vaguely insulting.

[mainiac]

Where I disagree with you is with the aircraft. Bf 109 was in most meaningful ways superior to its every opponent that wasnt the Spitfire until 1943 when the P-47 arrived to Europe. And it scored very well against the Spitfire too, even before it received propellor pitch automatics, drop tank capacity or the huge upgrade that was the Bf 109 F. Yeah, the design was already getting old by then(1943) and there wasnt much that could be done more by upgrading, as the many G-models demonstrate...

This runs into the problem with German nomenclature which is that you say "Bf 109" was superior and I wonder "what Bf 109 does he mean?"  Because even within the same model there is a huge amount of variation.  Was the Bf 109e superior to the D.520, the H-75 or early Hurricanes around the time of the battle of France?  Because their performance in the battle of France was underwhelming once you understand that the allied losses reflect planes lost on the ground after the political surrender of the french and obsolete aircraft (something the Germans didn't have).

The Luftwaffe was of course very good at flying aggressive missions and making it's airforce win the ground war.  They made their numbers and quality count.  But if the Whermacht hadn't achieved lucky success so quickly their horrible attrition rate would have made the Bf109 look like a bad plane.

edit: it should be noted by ze Wunderwaffen fanbois that the US TD units fielding the Wolverine and Hellcat mainly had excellent win ratios. Wittmann good. Sure good part of it can be explained with Allied superiority in numbers, air superiority, all the logistical and C&C issues the Germans had due to everything etc. etc. but it still shows that the US concept of using highly mobile, high firepower separate, autonomous TD units from company to regimental strength moving where needed worked. Those vehicles had given away basically all armor to gain mobility: operational and tactical flexibility.

I dont think it really shows that at all.  It shows that if you have a doctrine that means a few units are going to only be applied to circumstances where you expect good kill ratios, they will get good kill ratios.  The Hellcats weren't going to be lost to static AT for instance but that said nothing about the effectiveness of how they were used, just that other units would bear that risk.

I dont think it fully holds water though: after early 1945 the Home Islands were fully blockaded and their war production had hard time delivering anything to the fronts elsewhere.

And yet they showed no desire to surrender.  It basically boils down to one of these:

1) Accept continued military rule in Japan with millions of more civilian deaths in China as the chinese fight a bloody war to reclaim the country
2) Starve the Japanese to surrender with many civilian deaths
3) Firebomb the Japanese to surrender with many civilian deaths

I dont really see 3 as worse then 1 or 2.

No, they could not.

Well they could have, it just would have been stupid.  Put a bigger gun mount in the turret and the beautiful ergonomics that made the Sherman the best tank of the war is gone.  Yay, you have a bigger gun, all it took was massively lowering your accuracy and time of fire.

[Erkki]

No complaints does not equal to "is good". It wasnt, not for tank combat. Whats a different question altogether is whether Shermans saw tank combat enough to justify improvement, we all know that only minority of tank losses were to other tanks. As you can see from production numbers of the 105 mm howitzer Shermans, tank combat probably wasnt the thing US commanders were most worried about in the big scale(ie. the tools they had were already "good enough").

Ability to penetrate an armor plate of less than 100 mm in thickness at range of 1000 m was awful. Especially when you consider that the values given in the charts are just 50/50% chance of penetration(majority of the projectile goes through) against a vertical plate. Thats barely sufficient against the Panzer IV, depending on the exact ammo 85 mm pen at 1000 m only reliably goes through the turret front next to gun mantlet, which was Pz IV's weakest spot and only 50 mm thick. Good luck against Panther.

This discussion has similar elements to the aviation sides' often had Browning 50 cal vs. cannons debate and why the USAAF and USN never went for heavier weapons. (hint: not because 50 cal was superior)

[mainiac]

1) People think penetration is more important then it is.  A tank can be lost without ever being "penetrated".
2) The place where Panzer IV armor is weakest is the sides.  There it's 30mm.  Most hits to tanks took place on their sides (larger target and enemies rarely oblige by standing together in one place).
3) 1000 meters is a big distance.  Can you shoot a moving target at 1000 meters with a cumbersome gun weighing hundreds of pounds?

[Lord Shonus]

Ability to penetrate an armor plate of less than 100 mm in thickness at range of 1000 m was awful. Especially when you consider that the values given in the charts are just 50/50% chance of penetration(majority of the projectile goes through) against a vertical plate. superior)

Shots at that range were extremely rare until the liberation of France, which is one of the big reasons why the Panther's long 75 or the Tiger's 88 were more trouble than they were worth. Most tank combat took place at quite short ranges where the 75mm was a kill shot - an earlier version of that gun sponson-mounted in the M3 Lee basically turned the African campaign around, and I've seen dozens of German diary entries expressing great fear of "Tommy's powerful and deadly new American tank" that appeared not long after the first Lend-Lease Shermans went into action. But let's critique the Panzer IV by the same yardstick you're using. At 1000 yards, the 7.5 cm KwK 40/L48 on the last models of Panzer IV could penetrate 63mm of armor @ 30 degrees. The Sherman's turret armor was 63-76mm frontal armor with a mantlet being 75mm @ 30 degrees, and the frontal hull, while "only" 51mm was sloped at 54 degrees, pushing the effective thickness beyond what the KwK 40 could do. In other words, while the Sherman might have difficulty penetrating a Pz IV at such a long range, it was completely invulnerable to the return fire.

[Erkki]

Where I disagree with you is with the aircraft. Bf 109 was in most meaningful ways superior to its every opponent that wasnt the Spitfire until 1943 when the P-47 arrived to Europe. And it scored very well against the Spitfire too, even before it received propellor pitch automatics, drop tank capacity or the huge upgrade that was the Bf 109 F. Yeah, the design was already getting old by then(1943) and there wasnt much that could be done more by upgrading, as the many G-models demonstrate...

This runs into the problem with German nomenclature which is that you say "Bf 109" was superior and I wonder "what Bf 109 does he mean?"  Because even within the same model there is a huge amount of variation.  Was the Bf 109e superior to the D.520, the H-75 or early Hurricanes around the time of the battle of France?  Because their performance in the battle of France was underwhelming once you understand that the allied losses reflect planes lost on the ground after the political surrender of the french and obsolete aircraft (something the Germans didn't have).

The Luftwaffe was of course very good at flying aggressive missions and making it's airforce win the ground war.  They made their numbers and quality count.  But if the Whermacht hadn't achieved lucky success so quickly their horrible attrition rate would have made the Bf109 look like a bad plane.

The only 109s that saw action against the French were E-1 and E-3. Plus IIRC a single unit of older models in the South(I dont know how they fared). They were superior in the most important areas of performance, and the (mostly) better pilot training, French-Briton lack of coordination, France's primitive systems(there was no up to date centralized system for ordering the air force tactically and the whole air C&C system was a mess literally using the civil phone lines, basically the fighter units good part of the time had no idea what was happening in their own air space and often received information hours late) and lack of fighting morale only added to that.

edit: it should be noted by ze Wunderwaffen fanbois that the US TD units fielding the Wolverine and Hellcat mainly had excellent win ratios. Wittmann good. Sure good part of it can be explained with Allied superiority in numbers, air superiority, all the logistical and C&C issues the Germans had due to everything etc. etc. but it still shows that the US concept of using highly mobile, high firepower separate, autonomous TD units from company to regimental strength moving where needed worked. Those vehicles had given away basically all armor to gain mobility: operational and tactical flexibility.

I dont think it really shows that at all.  It shows that if you have a doctrine that means a few units are going to only be applied to circumstances where you expect good kill ratios, they will get good kill ratios.  The Hellcats weren't going to be lost to static AT for instance but that said nothing about the effectiveness of how they were used, just that other units would bear that risk.

True, thats what I said. TD vs. Tank in a situation where all odds are for you and other units give cover and only losses are to the already outnumbered, outpositioned and outclasses enemy tanks, you end up with ridiculous K/D ratios as long as the tools are good enough.

[Erkki]

Ability to penetrate an armor plate of less than 100 mm in thickness at range of 1000 m was awful. Especially when you consider that the values given in the charts are just 50/50% chance of penetration(majority of the projectile goes through) against a vertical plate. superior)

Shots at that range were extremely rare until the liberation of France, which is one of the big reasons why the Panther's long 75 or the Tiger's 88 were more trouble than they were worth. Most tank combat took place at quite short ranges where the 75mm was a kill shot - an earlier version of that gun sponson-mounted in the M3 Lee basically turned the African campaign around, and I've seen dozens of German diary entries expressing great fear of "Tommy's powerful and deadly new American tank" that appeared not long after the first Lend-Lease Shermans went into action. But let's critique the Panzer IV by the same yardstick you're using. At 1000 yards, the 7.5 cm KwK 40/L48 on the last models of Panzer IV could penetrate 63mm of armor @ 30 degrees. The Sherman's turret armor was 63-76mm frontal armor with a mantlet being 75mm @ 30 degrees, and the frontal hull, while "only" 51mm was sloped at 54 degrees, pushing the effective thickness beyond what the KwK 40 could do. In other words, while the Sherman might have difficulty penetrating a Pz IV at such a long range, it was completely invulnerable to the return fire.

Indeed they were rare in Normandy especially. I did mention it...

Notice that I did not rate the Pz IV way or another yet. Suffice to say I think the Germans could have done better, especially with the upgradeability... Or they they should have just designed the Panther better.

But you should notice the armor penetration values were calculated/rated differently by the Germans. For one, they wanted over 90% penetration against 30 degree laid back plate. These are Aberdeen range tests on German ammo captured in Tunisia apparently(ie. values calculated by the Allies, not of German origin):    (No, I dont have a proper source, not right now. I'm not really a tank guy myself so I have a lack of good literature)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Lord Shonus]

Ability to penetrate an armor plate of less than 100 mm in thickness at range of 1000 m was awful. Especially when you consider that the values given in the charts are just 50/50% chance of penetration(majority of the projectile goes through) against a vertical plate. superior)

Shots at that range were extremely rare until the liberation of France, which is one of the big reasons why the Panther's long 75 or the Tiger's 88 were more trouble than they were worth. Most tank combat took place at quite short ranges where the 75mm was a kill shot - an earlier version of that gun sponson-mounted in the M3 Lee basically turned the African campaign around, and I've seen dozens of German diary entries expressing great fear of "Tommy's powerful and deadly new American tank" that appeared not long after the first Lend-Lease Shermans went into action. But let's critique the Panzer IV by the same yardstick you're using. At 1000 yards, the 7.5 cm KwK 40/L48 on the last models of Panzer IV could penetrate 63mm of armor @ 30 degrees. The Sherman's turret armor was 63-76mm frontal armor with a mantlet being 75mm @ 30 degrees, and the frontal hull, while "only" 51mm was sloped at 54 degrees, pushing the effective thickness beyond what the KwK 40 could do. In other words, while the Sherman might have difficulty penetrating a Pz IV at such a long range, it was completely invulnerable to the return fire.

Indeed they were rare in Normandy especially. I did mention it...

Notice that I did not rate the Pz IV way or another yet. Suffice to say I think the Germans could have done better, especially with the upgradeability... Or they they should have just designed the Panther better.

But you should notice the armor penetration values were calculated/rated differently by the Germans. For one, they wanted over 90% penetration against 30 degree laid back plate. These are Aberdeen range tests on German ammo captured in Tunisia apparently(ie. values calculated by the Allies, not of German origin):    (No, I dont have a proper source, not right now. I'm not really a tank guy myself so I have a lack of good literature)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That looks very fishy as an Allied range document - neither the US or the British primarily used the metric system, and any firing tests they conducted would have been measured in yards.

EDIT: Just downloaded a report from the Aberdeen Proving Ground in the same period. All thicknesses are in inches, all ranges are in feet or yards.

[mainiac]

The only 109s that saw action against the French were E-1 and E-3. Plus IIRC a single unit of older models in the South(I dont know how they fared). They were superior in the most important areas of performance, and the (mostly) better pilot training, French-Briton lack of coordination, France's primitive systems(there was no up to date centralized system for ordering the air force tactically and the whole air C&C system was a mess literally using the civil phone lines, basically the fighter units good part of the time had no idea what was happening in their own air space and often received information hours late) and lack of fighting morale only added to that.

Better pilots and planes?

How many Hurricanes did the Luftwaffe kill in the air during the battle of France?  I say in the air because most hurricanes were lost on the ground due to the surrender.
How many H-75?
How many De502?

[Erkki]

Better pilots and planes?

How many Hurricanes did the Luftwaffe kill in the air during the battle of France?  I say in the air because most hurricanes were lost on the ground due to the surrender.
How many H-75?
How many De502?

Why are you interested in the absolute numbers? I guess loss ratios in air to air alone would be more useful. I dont think I'll be able to provide those. But JG 26 alone claimed 160 victories (over RAF and French) during the French campaign while losing 22 pilots (2 in accidents, 3 captured). ISBN 978-952-229-132-5

[Sheb]

You're comparing pilot losses to planes losses though.

[mainiac]

Why are you interested in the absolute numbers? I guess loss ratios in air to air alone would be more useful. I dont think I'll be able to provide those. But JG 26 alone claimed 160 victories (over RAF and French) during the French campaign while losing 22 pilots (2 in accidents, 3 captured). ISBN 978-952-229-132-5

160 victories against what?  Were by any chance most of those victories against 2 engine bombers during a bloody three day period and recon planes over the course of most of the campaign?

How many of the three modern aircraft did the planes and pilots you say were better have?

[Erkki]

No need to get hostile...


28.9.1939 Hawk 75 near Tündorf by Joseph Bürschgens (who was wounded)
7.11.1939 Blenheim near Opladen by Joachim Müncheberg
18.12.1939 6 Wellington bombers + several damaged near Wilhelmshaven, first by Johannes Steinhoff himself, no losses

Thats 8-0 during the sitting war, they didnt take part to Case White (Poland).

10.5.1940 5 wins against Dutch fighters while escorting Ju 52s. Wolfgang Ludewig ordered to land near Haag and find out where the paratroopers are, plane damaged by anti-aircraft fire so he couldnt fly back
11.5.1940 26 of GC I/4 Hawk 75s against JG26 near Antwerpen, 6 confirmed victories to no losses (4 French pilots KIA or WIA), many more Hawks damaged
11.5. later same day against GC/III/1 and GC III/3 MS.406 fighters near Antwerpen, 1 confirmed victory, feldwebel Gerhard Hertzog shot down and captured, later sent to Canada
13.5. against 264. Squadron Defiants and 66. Squadron Spitfires when escorting Ju 87 Stukas near the Dutch coast, 5 Defiants and a Spitfire shot down(cross-checked, true casualties), Karl Borris shot down, bailed out and walked to home
13.5. near Moerdijik, Fokker T-V and Fokker G-1 shot down by Karl Ebbighausen
13.5. against GC III/3 MS.406s near Breda, 1 shot down by Eberhard Henrici, 2nd one collided with Hermann Speck while a second Bf 109 was shot down but the pilot survived


16.5. First time over France.
18.5. afternoon, large furballs over German armor spearhead heading towards the Channel, 10 MS.406, 1 Hawk 75, 1 Hurricane. A Bf 109 was shot down, pilot captured by the French but released (!!!) 3 days later!!!!!!!
19.5. II/26 scored 3 wins, Captain Herwig Knüppel MIA, found dead 2 days later
24-27.5. 10 wins to no losses when operating from Antwerpen and Western Belgium

28.5. Operation Dynamo, evacuation of Dunkerque, begins:
28.5. I/JG26 over Dunkerque, 6 victories to 1 loss against Spitfires.
28.5. II/JG26 over Dunkerque, 2 Spitfires, 1 Hurricane
28.5. III/JG26 over Oostend, 6 Hurricanes confirmed
29.5. bad weather cleareed only late in the afternoon, against massive formation of mainly Spitfires near Dunkerque, 4 Spitfires shot by II/JG26 while III/JG26 got 6, mixture of Hurricanes and Spitfires. The RAF was after Ju 87s (none were lost) and managed to get themselves bounced by the Bf 109 escorts. No Bf 109 losses. (RAF claimed 15!!)
30.5. fogged in, no flights
31.5. over and near Dunkerque again, I/JG26 scored 1-2 against Spitfires, II/JG26 bagged a Hurricane. III/JG26, escorting bombers, managed to again bounce on the British fighters and shoot down 1 Defiant (2 others collided and went down on their own), 5 Hurricanes(confirmed cross-checked losses), 2 Bf 109s lost.
1.6. 6 pilots and 8 Bf 109s lost against the RAF mainly, 5 Hurricanes shot down cross-checked(6 German, claims, 3 were later confirmed)
2.6. again escorting bombers, 6 RAF fighters shot down near Dunkerque to no losses. Evacuation ends.

3.6. near Paris 3 French fighters shot down to 1 loss (pilot captured, released after France surrendered)
6.6 Adolf Galland takes over III/JG26 and starts his organizational renovations...
8.6. II/JG26's 7./JG26 against Hurricanes near Paris again, Klaus Mietusch shot down, crash landed, had his butt shot through by a French civilian but he escaped and made it
9.6. free hunt over Paris, Bürschgens' victory which he writes about in great detail. One Bf 109 damaged.

Transfer to Villacoublay, war ended soon and the regiment didn't manage to find action any more.

During Dutch, Belgium and French campaign, air-to-air losses(does not include landing accidents and such) were: 92-19 plus the regiment lost one fighter to anti-aircraft fire.

160 claims, 100 confirmed/granted victories to 20 losses in air. Theres some bombers and Defiants there, but majority of the victories(most of the ones against RAF and early fights against the French are cross-checked) were definitely not against recon planes and antiquated bombers.

That also means that some pilots were lost as KIA outside of combat too, those 2 at least.

Edit: I can add details of at least Galland's victories in these too, as he happened to be in III/JG26. If needed.

[mainiac]

No need to get hostile...

And I have no clue what that list you are posting is.  However it looks like the selected victories of a certain pilot or group.  I dont even know where to begin in pointing out the number of statistical biases there would be in such a dataset as representative.

The reason I asked for the number of planes lost is that nations had good ideas of their own inventories.  Reported "confirmed" kills however are complete fantasy numbers.  German aces alone claimed more "confirmed" kills against the soviet then the Soviets had planes.