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Author Topic: Things that made you sad today thread.  (Read 9702827 times)

Cryxis, Prince of Doom

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96180 on: August 09, 2015, 10:08:10 am »

I'm with Helgo, they may have been over engineered but they were a lot better than the American and British tanks. Maybe towards the end of the war when they tried making tanks with wayyyyy too thick armor and way too big of guns they were garbage (in practicality) but most their tanks were pretty good
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Jopax

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96181 on: August 09, 2015, 10:12:50 am »

They basically suffered from rule-of-cool which got progressively worse as the war went on. Sure the big complex and expensive stuff was cool and effective, but they could've had pretty much the same effect with cheaper more mass produced stuff that was easier to maintain. Pretty much everybody but the Germans went with this line of thinking.

Edit:
Almost forgot the sad reason I came here in the first place XD

Keep getting messages on DArt, they keep being spambot bullshit instead of actual messages :(
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Lord Shonus

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96182 on: August 09, 2015, 10:18:16 am »

German tanks were generally garbage
Wait, what? Over-engineered, yes, but garbage? Not that patriotism is appropriate when talking about the Nazi killing machine, but the German tanks from WWII are usually held to be fine examples of German engineering...

That's a popular misconception based on early historians taking SS bragging and official propaganda at face value, a few pop-history books written by people who served behind the lines and got most things wrong, and interviews with veterans that not only had 50-70 years between them and the fighting when interviewed but suffered significantly from the "any gun pointed at you seems a thousand times bigger than it really is". Once you break it down, the closest thing the Germans had to a good tank was the Panzer IV, which was at least able to fight if the crew had decent tactical skill. The I and II were basically glorified armored cars that the Poles and French destroyed with ease (832 out of ~2700 German tanks were knocked out during the invasion of Poland, or 20%! This, mind you, is against an enemy that is outnumbered 3:1, was attacked from two sides at once, and suffered complete strategic and tactical surprise; with ~800 out of ~2500 being lost in the invasion of France), the Panzer III had no room for upgradeability and was thus rendered completely and utterly obsolete soon after production, and the Panzer IV was, at best, a third tier tank (behind the M4 Sherman and the T-34, it is arguable on which of those was the best tank of the war) due to armor that was not only relatively thin but completely unangled, poor strategic performance, and unacceptably large profile.

Those were the "good" German tanks. The Tiger I was probably the worst fighting vehicle ever made - being far heavier than the engine could support, requiring three to four times more logistical support than the Panzer IV, and armor that, while decently thick, was still slab-sided, meaning that even the base model T-34 and Sherman had nearly as much effective armor, all in an extremely easy to spot, easy to hit package. The only good feature of the tank was the monstrous gun, which was usually still a downside - the vast majority of targets could be penetrated just as easily by the 75mm guns in service that were much smaller (which would have required a smaller turret to mount, which would not only have been lighter but made the tank smaller and thus the whole thing lighter) except for extreme-range shots that only occurred with any commonality during one period of the war. For the most part, that massive gun was nothing but a liability, restricting the vehicles movement due to the awkward gun handling, and rendering it more difficult to engage at the close ranges most fighting took place at. The Soviet response to the vehicle (after the laughing stopped) was to cancel all plans for equipping the T-34 upgrade project with the 57mm anti-tank gun instead of the 85mm anti-infantry gun or the IS with a 100mm antitank gun instead of the 122mm anti-infantry gun, as the Tiger was no real threat. Meanwhile, while popular myth states that you needed 5 Shermans to take out a Tiger, the reality was that Tiger vs. Sherman battles (mostly Soviets using Lend-Lease vehicles) ended up with Tigers taking 4 or 5 as many losses. It's true that commanders usually USED 5 Shermans to engage a Tiger because that was the standard platoon size (and thus the fewest tanks that would ever make up a tactical unit) but it wasn't a "quantity vs. quality" reason. They simply always had that many.

The Panther was no better - while the front armor was extremely difficult to penetrate with the ammunition available (high performance ammunition had been relegated to the back burner after US tanks were massacring Tigers and Panthers in the Italian campaign) in France, the side armor was so thin in places that obsolete anti-tank rifles left over from the last war could take them out, and the gunner had a very hard time finding targets because he had no periscope, making the issues of having far too big a gun that the Panther shared with the Tiger even worse, and the engine was even more inadequate compared to the weight of the vehicle (in this case, it was Hitler's personal fault - the Panther started out as a direct copy of the T-34 and evolved into what would have been a superb tank (which exists in World of Tanks as the VK 30.02D), but Hitler ordered more frontal armor (which necessitated thinning out the side armor) and a bigger gun (which needed a bigger turret and added a shitton of weight) to be added) so it was even less reliable even in the ideal versions produced by France after the war (which the French hated and discarded within 5 years).

The Tiger II was the culmination of this trend. Even MORE overgunned, and even MORE overweight (although since the armor was not only thick but sloped and well distributed, it was actually useful), the only thing that makes this not the Worst Tank In History is that it really was very hard to kill with available weapons, allowing it to do serious damage from the position it broke down in until heavier weapons were brought up or you were able to outflank it.

The genuinely good vehicles that Germany built during the war were the casemated tank destroyers and assault guns - the Jagdpanzer, the Hetzer, the StuG. These were small enough to actually conceal, and carried a gun small enough that it didn't get in the way, all in a package that was decently mobile and had just enough armor to take a badly aimed shot. Not to mention that you could build and support 8 Hetzers for the resources of a single Tiger.


There is one period in the war where the enormous range of the German Tiger and Panther was actually of benefit - the reconquest of France in 1944. In this campaign, the Allies absoultely had to take immobile fixed targets (bridges vital to retaking Paris) and HAD to cross wide-open flat fields to do so, allowing the Germans to use their monstrous guns at extreme range. Of course, the Jagdpanzers or even towed AT guns could have done the same thing much cheaper.

To sum it up (numbers pulled from nowhere, but this is the actual trend:

If you're shooting at 80mm effective armor, it doesn't matter if you have 90mm penetration at a given range or 150mm - you penetrate either way.
If what's being shot at you has 70mm penetration, it doesn't matter if you have 50mm or 70mm effective armor - it won't save you. COnversely, if what's being shot at you has 45mm penetration, it won't penetrate either way.
If you're too heavy to move without breaking down because you're carrying way more armor and gun than you need, you're committing a very expensive form of suicide by going into combat.


There was never ONE period in the war where the Germans had better tanks than the Americans, British, or Soviets. The best they ever managed was a technical parity coupled with better tactical performance.
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Il Palazzo

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96183 on: August 09, 2015, 10:35:41 am »

Sauces, mate? As much as I've never really treated Discovery Channel-type docudramas as good source of information, I'm looking at the battle of Prokhorovka losses and I just don't see the supposed inferiority in armour.
Unless you're telling me all the kills were made by Stukas and jagdpanzers.
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Cryxis, Prince of Doom

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96184 on: August 09, 2015, 10:39:15 am »

I would also like to argue that the Russians win best tank award since they were (the only ones?) to have angled armor on their tanks and IIRC had much success in tank battles.

But we should probably make a thread for this as the argument seems to be muddling up the thread
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Jopax

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96185 on: August 09, 2015, 11:16:59 am »

You lost me the moment you claimed the Panther and the Tiger had the same guns.
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ChairmanPoo

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Lord Shonus

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96187 on: August 09, 2015, 12:27:00 pm »

Sauces, mate? As much as I've never really treated Discovery Channel-type docudramas as good source of information, I'm looking at the battle of Prokhorovka losses and I just don't see the supposed inferiority in armour.
Unless you're telling me all the kills were made by Stukas and jagdpanzers.

1 in 3 of the Soviet tanks at Prokhorovka were T-70 light tanks meant for scouting, not intended to stand up to heavy combat. This is going to boost losses tremendously, just like using Battlecruisers in the main battle line is going to cost you ships. Further, the Soviet forces attacked very stupidly - charging in at full speed while firing, and getting so dispersed that effective command and control was impossible. In other words, you had 800 individual tanks, all fighting alone at the same time. Meanwhile, the German forces fought a coordinated battle that took full advantage of the Soviet's lack of cohesion (three Panzer IVs were able to joint the Soviet formation unnoticed!) If you have a thousand men with AK-47s charge blindly forward at a hundred guys with Moisin-Nagants while firing at the hip, the AK-47 guys will be shot in carload lots - that doesn't mean that the Moisin is a better service rifle.

You lost me the moment you claimed the Panther and the Tiger had the same guns.

No, they have the same problem - too big a gun for their tank.
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Il Palazzo

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96188 on: August 09, 2015, 12:39:23 pm »

Sauces, mate? As much as I've never really treated Discovery Channel-type docudramas as good source of information, I'm looking at the battle of Prokhorovka losses and I just don't see the supposed inferiority in armour.
Unless you're telling me all the kills were made by Stukas and jagdpanzers.

1 in 3 of the Soviet tanks at Prokhorovka were T-70 light tanks meant for scouting, not intended to stand up to heavy combat. This is going to boost losses tremendously
Looking at the wikipedia article, it's 222 T34s to 80 T70s in losses vs 43 total tank/assault gun losses on the German side. Even taking into account the issue of battlefield control allowing Germans to repair most damaged tanks (as discussed in the article), that still leaves a rather stark disparity.


Anyway, as I said - sources. I'm not inclined to replace a dodgy one (Discovery, History Channel, history books written by Germans) with none at all, which is all you've offered so far.
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Lord Shonus

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96189 on: August 09, 2015, 12:57:40 pm »

Anyway, as I said - sources. I'm not inclined to replace a dodgy one (Discovery, History Channel, history books written by Germans) with none at all, which is all you've offered so far.

http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/search/label/Tiger

Dozens of Soviet archive documents cross-referenced with German records to eliminate bias.

Official US Army analysis of tank losses, by cause and number of hits.
http://lmharchive.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/18-Chapter-Ten1.pdf
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WillowLuman

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96190 on: August 09, 2015, 01:03:58 pm »

Mom's home. I didn't know she was coming home yet, thought she'd be staying through the week to make arrangements after grandpa's passing. Instead, she comes home amidst the noise of me having a friend over, since that's what I felt I needed to cope. If I'd known she was coming back I wouldn't have called anyone over but I wasn't paying enough attention, and now I've been thoughtless. I've just lost my grandpa, but she just lost her dad.

I wish I could crawl under a rock and vanish.
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Jopax

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96191 on: August 09, 2015, 01:22:12 pm »

Dude don't feel bad about that. We all cope with that stuff in different ways, talk to her, tell her how you felt and why you called someone over. I'm sure she'll understand.
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WillowLuman

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96192 on: August 09, 2015, 01:24:51 pm »

Yeah but I wouldn't have if I knew she was coming home, because I figured she'd need some space. I should have been more attentive.
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Arx

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96193 on: August 09, 2015, 01:32:59 pm »

Yeah but I wouldn't have if I knew she was coming home, because I figured she'd need some space. I should have been more attentive.

Everyone makes mistakes.

Which I happen to be feeling particularly strongly right now. One of our dogs is dying (he's lost so much weight in the last week ;_;), and it's not that that's bothering me (he's had a long and fulfilling life), it's that the rest of my family isn't quite so accepting and there's been a fair bit of stepping on toes.

Ours isn't as bad, but... just apologise, and move on. Don't let feeling bad about your mom add onto the problems you already have. We're all entitled to our own grief.

* Arx hugs Hugo.
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WillowLuman

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #96194 on: August 09, 2015, 01:37:23 pm »

I know, but there's a bit of strain here now, and of course there's the resurfacing of the usual stresses/anxieties ("all the housework not attended to / how are the grades doing?") with increased vigor. And I'm disappointed in myself in how much I seem to want to run away and escape from my grief.
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