Quote:
Originally Posted by dalem
That's also a reason why German claims of always being buried by superior numbers on the East Front usually need a second look. A Soviet medium tank battalion is only 30 tanks, and a heavy tank regiment is only 21 KV or IS tanks. 21!-dale
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The Germans suffered from book-worm logistics "experts" in Berlin. They didn't believe the weather reports from the front lines of how severe the winters were and didn't issue them the right kind of foul weather clothing. Even the lubricating and recoil chamber oils for their artillery congealed up so thick they couldn't fire an 88 without it busting out the back of the slide.
Also, the Panthers came in too late in the war to equal or defeat the T-34's that were geometrically more protective in their armor design.
On that same History Channel program I mentioned above, German tank crewmen admitted that their tanks had severe mechanical problems and would break down quite often. Though knocking out Shermans was easy for them ("They just would light up and burn when we hit them") they conceded that our dependability to keep on moving made easy targets of the stalled tanks. I think the same scenario was true with the Russian tanks being more rugged though badly manned.