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Author
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Topic: Tank Reporting Practise ger and sov
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Darrin
Senior Member
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posted 01-05-2003 08:25 AM
  
The problem with the tiger reporting by germany was tempory and local. It had more to do with confusion over what ger units did with new tiger II tanks and old forms that only had room for tiger Is. The 503rd definatly reported thier numbers togeather on two dates in july and at this point they were the only unit with a grand total of 12 tiger IIs. Compared to a grand total of 123 tiger Is committed to battle by the end of july. The number of tiger IIs committed and any errors in reporting are insignificant in caparison in july. It would not be until the end of aug that another 14 tiger IIs would be commited to battle with the 503. Another 5 mechanically deficant prototypes that were left behind when the pan lehr div and remained at camp would also be lost in aug. No more tiger Is came so we have 123 tiger Is and only 29 Tiger IIs committed by the end of aug. Larger but of little significance as a % of all tiger Is committed. Although we can see how the 503rd reported its tiger IIs we canīt say for sure for the higher echelons. The OBW on 15 july reported 19 des tigers. The Hr.B on 27 july reported 23 des tigers. The OBW long after july reported a total of 33 tigers lost by the end of the month 31 july. While this last one probably includes any corrections it aslo probably lumps Tiger Is and IIs togeather. Something it may not have done on the 15th or the army group on the 27th of july. Plus although the 5 tiger II prototpyes were des in aug they may not have been included in the ger accounting system at all. Even under perfect reportiong system they were not considered ready for combat and were not assigned to any combat unit. In fact they were scheduled to be sent back to ger because of this. It is doubtful that they would have been credited agaist any of the ger levels of reporting in the west at that time. The ger records were normally good even for tanks. Even for tigers in july the only problem may have been the new tiger IIs coming and no new reports to account for it. But in the greater scheam of things any problems in july were extremly minor. Tigers before july and after aug and all ger tanks outside of aug 44 were normally accurate. Accarte does not mean free from error but free from any major uncorrected errors.
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gungho101
Member
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posted 04-28-2003 02:42 PM
my girlfriends father was assulted by witmans tiger at villers bocage and the damage it did was somthing bill(her father )never forgot he drove a bren gun carrier he was in the london rifle brigade a t/a unit belonging to montys 7th armoured
which was a total wreck the lone tiger accounting for 81 other ranks and 3 field grade officers 5 tigers layed waste to over 50 vehicles in and around villers bocage
i have photos of point 102 if any one wants a copy i took these during reseach last september
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gungho101
Member
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posted 04-30-2003 05:58 PM
MR KENNY
I HAVE LOTS OF RESEARCH ON THE CLY AND LONDON RIFLE BRIGADE LOCKING HORNS WITH WITMANS TIGERS TELL WHAT YOU WANT AND E/MAIL ADDRESS I WILL POST ON CHEERS T.C
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Gary Dickson
Senior Member
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posted 06-04-2007 01:38 PM
Mr. Zetterling (or anyone),It has been claimed in other places that one reason that the Soviets had higher permanent tank losses for particular battles is that they were more willing to write off damaged tanks because of their high production rate than the Germans were, and the Germans put tanks in the category of long-term repair and only later wrote them off. Does this make sense to you? Also, if you take as an example the southern face of the Kursk salient, a relatively small number of German tanks were written-off during the battle, but a much larger number were evacuated to repair units in the rear. When the Soviets attacked and some of these damaged tanks were either captured or destroyed, how were those losses counted?
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Niklas Zetterling
Senior Member
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posted 06-04-2007 03:05 PM
Clearly the ratio repaired vs destroyed tanks differs between the Germans and the Red Army.
However, I have not seen that this could be attributable to a German practise of initially classifying the tanks as damaged and subsequently writing them off. Of course there were such cases, but then specific reasons can be found. For example a damaged tank may be cannibalized for spare parts (happend in any army) or approaching enemy forces may cause the damaged tanks to be blown up, to avoid capture. The latter situation naturally occurred more frequently in defence.
In general, the Germans intended to repair a tank that was classified as damaged. In most cases the damaged tanks were eventually repaired For example, during the period 1 October 1943 to 31 January 1944, the number of actually repaired tanks exceeded the number irevocably lost by a factor three. This was a period of retreat for the Germans, which made it more difficult to salvage damaged tanks, or tanks that had simply been stranded for lack of fuel, if we compare to Zitadelle in July 1943 (when also mines probably accounted for a higher percentage of tanks damaged compared to the East front average).A damaged tank usually remained with the parent unit or was sent to a repair facility fairly close to the unit. In such cases the tank still formally belonged to the unit. A much smaller number of tanks were sent far back, which meant that they did not belong to the original unit any more. Rather, they could be sent anywhere after being repaired. How these three categories were separated seems to have differed from theatre to theatre. Also, the Germans changed there repair practises during the war. If a tank in workshop was captured, or blown up to prevent capture, it was written off as per the date it was captured or blown up. Most likely the Red Army had the same practise. Indeed, I can not see that any other practise would make more sense.
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Niklas Zetterling
Senior Member
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posted 06-04-2007 03:18 PM
By the way Gary, in a forthcoming book I will discuss an example of tank losses that occur due to retreats. If you have some patience, you will find some interesting info in it.
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michael kenny
Senior Member
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posted 06-06-2007 11:59 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Niklas Zetterling:
For example a damaged tank may be cannibalized for spare parts (happend in any army)
For sSS PzAbt 101 in Normandy it can be proved (through photographs) that at least 2 Tigers had different hull/turret combinations than they had at the start of the campaign. Number '211' had a 1st kp hull and '223' has had an older turret fitted that must have come from either the 1st or 3rd kp. These were not temporary measures because both turrets had been repainted with the new numbers.
Would that be two 'half' write offs?
Nothing is as simple as it seems!
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Niklas Zetterling
Senior Member
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posted 06-07-2007 12:50 AM
If such a measure is not temporary, one of the hulls would be written off.
There are examples in the reports when tanks are written off to be cannibalized for spare parts.
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Gary Dickson
Senior Member
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posted 06-07-2007 12:45 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Niklas Zetterling:
By the way Gary, in a forthcoming book I will discuss an example of tank losses that occur due to retreats. If you have some patience, you will find some interesting info in it.
Great!
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