Why did Germany keep pumping out so many special snowflake tanks/tank

>>29320145
fear and vengence weapons

maus is a lot more intimidating than a panzer IV

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>>29320145
Because it's the same mad country that thought this was simple

>>29320145
Because Germans are anything but efficient.

>>29320149
>Roll out Maus to battlefield
>Can't cross bridges, slow as shit, xbox hueg target
>Forward scouts call it in
>P47 thunderbolts blow it up with rockets

>>29320168
>sending a maus out without air and arty support
>needing to cross bridges when it supposed to ford rivers

regardless still dumb as hell unless you're a tank commander seeing that thing for the first time, thinking it was a bunker or something

>>29320183
>germany post 43
>air support
Someone doesn't know much about WWII.

>>29320183
>Implying the Germans would have had decent airpower by the time the tank could have rolled off

Yeah, I know. Would have been cool to see it in action though

>>29320149
>Maus

Not Rolling in a P1500

>>29320145
>Why did Germany keep pumping out so many special snowflake tanks/tank variants
They didn't. They made small numbers of snowflake tanks and mostly focused on Pz4 and Panther.

>>29320214
at this rate why not two direct fire K5's?

>>29320145
>a fuckton of StuGs and P4's?
Sure, if they upgradfed their guns. Panthers instead of Tigers would have been a better idea.

>>29320250
>Panthers instead of Tigers
Tiger I was operation from 1942, while the Panther wasn't really ready until 1944. Tiger I is also only 10 tons heavier than Panther.

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>>29320145
Well they couldn't outproduce the enemy, so they went with the new wunderwaffle that could turn the tide of war (if any of them worked).

>>29320293
No, they made experimental types to test out new technology and concepts. They did not make 1 Maus thinking it could turn the tide of war.

>>29320145
German military procurement was honestly pretty fucked. There was lot of political cronyism and vying for power amongst Nazi officials taht resulted in a bit of a mess.

>>29320303
And this was different to any other military process because.....

>>29320145
>Panzer IV's
Were outdated, obsolete and outmatched by their contemporaries before the wars end.
Still good, but imagining that they could have done better with more (but still waaaaaay less than their enemies) but worse tanks is ludicrous.

They should have just done what some suggested, copy the T-34 borderline outright but fix its quirks, fit 3 man turrets, put in proper radios, give it proper optics and then, most importantly, highyl trained crews.

>>29320332
You just described what the panther should have been.

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>>29320332
In my opinion i think panther looks cool as fuck, germans should have abandoned all of their special king tigers and stuff (not that it's not awesome tank it's fucking ballin') if they would made improvements like puting drive wheels in the back so there would be more space instead of puting in the front(still don't get it why somebody explain please). Also Panther prototype looks more like german t34 that soldiers were asking for.

>>29320312
Hitler tried to make them as inefficient by making them bicker among each other
due to him being afraid one of them gets too powerful and try to usurp him

>>29320332
The T-34 in itself would have done wonders simply with trained crews. I've read that by the time a German PzIV had fired three rounds, a T-34 would only fire its first. In the same manner Soviet tanks would not divide targets amongst themselves, but all in a platoon would focus on a single target.

>>29320368
>that poor bastard that takes the full wrath of a T-34 platoon.

>>29320338
I know, just thought it'd get the point across better than 'they should have built a better panther'.
>>29320361
That's more like it. But even then they couldn't resist the stupid interlaced road wheels.
Fine, it spreads your weight out more, fine it provies theoretically more side protection, but if mud gets in and freezes, you're fucked, if you have to change an inner wheel, its a collosal pain in the arse.

>>29320366
Ever read anything about Ruskie military procurement? The reason they ran parallel heavy and medium tank development? Germany wasn't alone in politics fucking up procurement, it's still the same shit today.

>>29320384
It was like the idea debacle of the KV-1.
>right, we've got this heavy tank armed with the same gun as the T-34
>its excellent, but too slow
>lets reduced its armour so its faster
>oh wait, no we're basically just building a slow T-34
Still took them a while to figure out that that was stupid.

>>29320361
>>29320332
>>29320380
Germans also should had abandoned slave labor in the armor department, many tanks, planes and other important equipment got fucked because given the chance slave workers would sabotage them. That's how many V2 rockets got fucked. If you want your tanks to be high quality hire people who wanna make them instead of forcing jews and slavs to do that.

>>29320366
And they ended up with shit like the Elefant

>>29320145
They tried to standardize their stuff at one point with the proposed Panzer III/IV but that design never got off the drawing board and they ended up with a massive clusterfuck of parts and confusion as different factories were putting out different things, all with their own parts.

Russia wasn't much better at one point, but then Stalin told them that they weren't making any more changes to the T-34 until the 34/85 variant.

Compare that to the Americans who built all but a few of their vehicles around that same chassis and basic design and everyone's logistics looked fucked in comparison.

>be kraut-Ingenieur
>have the choice to invent wunderwaffles in a safe place or to sit in a ditch at the Ostfront with a K98
I believe part of the R&D chaos in germany besides power struggles and ineptitude of the bureaucracy is due to the fact that some researchers preferred to invent one thing after the other and tell their superiors how it will turn around the war because they had no inclination to be declared expendible and to be sent of to fight themselves.

>>29320409
The Allied bombing campaign and conscription to feed the meat grinder of the Eastern Front kinda forced them to do that. Of course, they were also about out of gas at that point so they were just screwed in general.

>>29320415
That was because Porsche jumped the gun and started making stuff before he got the contract and thry had to figure out what to do with them.

>>29320416
But US had so many factories and resources that it wasn't much of a problem. But yeah when it came to shermans swapping most of the parts wasn't that much of a problem.

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>>29320145
Hitler was a man who had his eyes on the future and cared about the citizens. He knew the enigma machine had been cracked with something resembling a computer (jews don't want you to know this). He decided to up the number of tanks on the field so one day his citizens could choose between more than two tanks when playing World of Tanks.

>>29320423
Part of it was the fact they were on the back foot for the latter years, there were plenty of prototypes in the US and Britain which were aborted, in Germany they got pushed into service in desperation, just look at all the hodge podge TD's they made from conquered nations.

>>29320433
they also bar women from working in the factories

>>29320441
I presume you wanted to say "ban" but yeah they did that? Why? German women could have done the work just as good and not to fuck up their machines. Did Hitler or some high guy told women to fuck off?

>>29320461
Pretty sure he meant bar, ie: you were barred entry to the pub for lack of ID

>>29320433
>That was because Porsche jumped the gun and started making stuff before he got the contract and thry had to figure out what to do with them.
haha that's hilarious
i take back anything bad i said about the elefants

>>29320474
Oh but still why did they do that?

>>29320483
Worked out pretty well though, country on the defensive, build a pillbox dangerous enough the other side resorts to shelling it with artillery till the crew bugs the fuck out.

>>29320491
Fuck knows

>>29320438
rofl, just saw that.

>>29320495
Well dang no wonder US, Britain and USSR could keep pumping out tanks, allies would probably have problems with quantity and quality of their equipment if women were banned from working in factories.

>>29320409
They'd have produced even less using slave labour.
They really shouldn't have started shit in the first place.
Just do everything up until, but stopping short of invading Poland.
Plenty of Lebensraum, plenty of international respect, would have been fine, but they got greedy.

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>>29320483
apparently the Elefant worked well in the Kursk
even though it's very slow and heavy,it was virtually impenetrable from the front,and was one of the key factors that the germans could actually punch through in the Northern salient,since only a 152 mm round could punch through it
but still it was mechanically unreliable,slow and lack a coaxial machine gun for infantry

>>29320524
>slow and lack a coaxial machine gun for infantry
Not really issues, considering its immense firepower. It's more of a semi-static AT gun than anything.

>>29320516
And they probably would be in the allies camp if the USSR invaded them. If France and Britain would see that Vatniks want to take over the Europe and then the world they'd gladly invite Nazis into their camp hell i'm from Poland but if Nazis would give me the chance instead of making me slave or sending me to camp i'd volunteer to fight the bolsheviks.

>>29320524
>>29320530
I tend to agree, something like that should never operate without infantry support, tanks are bad enough without support let alone casemate TD's

>>29320303
>There was lot of political cronyism and vying for power amongst Nazi officials taht resulted in a bit of a mess.
so just like in Soviet Russiia, except the mass productiion

>>29320514
Fully utilising your workforce is smart.
Having women work in facotires means more of your men can go to the front.

>>29320145
Germany bit off way more than it could chew and had no hope of matching the manpower/materials/resources advantage of the allies. Their only hope was to try and outclass their enemies, which they still failed at.

>>29320516
Hitler was in a bit of a pinch actually in 1941
He could not invade Britain after the Luftwaffe defeat there because of the Royal Navy and RAF still looming in the skies while the Kriegsmarine was only expected to be restrenghtened in 1945
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a temporary truce,Hitler and Stalin are ideological opponents,there was no doubt that there will be a showdown between them
After the humiliation that they suffered during the winter war,Stalin planned to make the red army the most lavishly equipped,mechanized and modernized force in the world by 1943

>>29320532
I doubt the Russians would even have thought of taking over Europe if not for the catalyst that was Barbarossa.
Russia was barely capable of invading Finland, let alone Europe, only the fact that they had to get better and had to produce more to fend the Germans off meant that they had the ability to push the Germans back through vast chunks of Europe.
Imagine if the USSR of 1941 tried to invade a unified, non-war torn (by the Germans) Europe.
Could've handed every man woman and child in Poland a gun and just let them deal with the Russians using numbers and pure hate.

>>29320554
>bit of a pinch in 1941
That's why I said stop before invading Poland, i.e. 1939 when things were fine for Germany and they weren't at war with anyone.

>Stalin planned to make the red army the most lavishly equipped,mechanized and modernized force in the world by 1943
Doesn't matter how lavishly equipped you are if you have very little experience, they'd still have had commisars in positions of power if not for experiences with the Germans.
Tahe Soviet army that overran Berlin was molded in the defensive battles in the East, would have just been a mass of conscripts without them.

>>29320542
It's not worth it though to send highly skilled labourers to the front when they're of far more use to the war working in factories.

>>29320574
true true
the soviets would not have honed their skill in deep battle and understanding in offensive operations,but still they would have 10 million extra personnel not getting killed or captured,which would be superbly formidable in any case

>>29320579
It is if you can replace them with women who can do the same thing.
History kind of disagrees with you.

>>29320530
It was enough of an issue that they were pulled from the frontline until a coaxial could be added after Kursk.

>>29320561
>Russia was barely capable of invading Finland, let alone Europe
That was because Stalin gutted the officer corps when he took over and large armies don't tend to do very well unless properly supplied and commanded. He vastly underestimated his enemy and his men paid the price for it.

Operation Barbarosa did as well as it did because he was still working through those issues when the Germans struck.

>>29320597
Chucking 10 million mostly conscripts at Europe on such a broad front wouldn't have got them anywhere in the end.
Worst case scenario Europe would repeat what happened after the First World War and straight up invade, probably resurrect the White cause, maybe (minus the pants-on-head-retarded racial purity shit of the Nazis) have turned the Russians against Stalin, its not as if there was any love for him.

>>29320597

>>29320605
>It was enough of an issue that they were pulled from the frontline until a coaxial could be added after Kursk.

What the fuck were they using the Ferdinands for to justify the requirement of a coaxial?

>>29320605
>That was because Stalin gutted the officer corps when he took over and large armies don't tend to do very well unless properly supplied and commanded. He vastly underestimated his enemy and his men paid the price for it.
.....I know that.

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>>29320145
Don't worry. From all the cool shit they made, they learnt their mistakes and made this amazing son of a bitch.

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>>29320648
>Armor is worthless since HEAT can't be stopped

>>29320619
A bow machine gun, sorry. I haven't had coffee yet.

>>29320361
>puting drive wheels in the back so there would be more space instead of puting in the front(still don't get it why somebody explain please)

Having the transmission at the front provides better traction in control.
Plus it adds around 150 mm of metal between the incoming shell and the driver.

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>>29320648
Being engineer in germany must had been awesome(If you weren't forced into soviet rape).
>Be smart.
>Design tanks for fuhrer and fatherland.
>Make cool shit like Tigers and Panthers.
>Each time you make some mistakes but you learn from them.
>Lose war.
>Get literally zero repercussions because every side wants you to work for them.
>Allies want you to make tank with french
>Frogs don't listen to you.
>Fuck them in the end and make your version.
>tfw pic related.

>>29320598
>It is if you can replace them with women who can do the same thing.
>History kind of disagrees with you.
Productivity fell drastically when skilled labor left and were replaced by slaves, old men and women. This effect was especially sharp in areas that demand both skill and physical strength, like mining.

>>29320461
German women are pretty much fully mobilized in the work force. More German women were employed than British women.

>>29320739
That's why most countries would leave skilled labourers in place, welders, turners and the like would stay at work instead of going to the front.

>>29320745
But were they working in factories or were they just typical nurses?

>>29320772
Not sure what the difference is. A wartorn country that's being bombed daily sure as hell could use some nurses.

>>29320739
>>29320748
Soviets did that with guys who were working with oil production, i remember watching on National Geographic about Baku, basically every man in town except oil workers get conscripted.
>>29320776
I know that, i meant to ask were women allowed to work in tank,planes and ammo production or were they only allowed to do stuff such as being nurse.

>>29320782
>I know that, i meant to ask were women allowed to work in tank,planes and ammo production or were they only allowed to do stuff such as being nurse.
Women were working in factories and served in home guard. But women mostly worked in agriculture, clerical, and service roles, just like in the west.

>>29320145

There was literally nothing wrong with taking a Panther, dumping the turret and slapping on a Tiger II gun on it.

>>29320145
Cause they knew that people 80 years in the future would get boner from looking at those sexy beast they made. Also question, if i'd want to have my own panther in Yuropoor land would i have to build it from the scratch?(With deactivated gun ofcourse) I know that you can buy t-72 etc. but i've yet to see WWII tank on sale.

>>29320574
things weren't fine for Germany in 1939 because they were propping up their jobs and rearmament program with huge deficit spending. Deficit in 1939 was something like 10% of GDP, which is fucking absurd for early 1940's.

Worse than that, Germany had just about exhausted every possible source of credit. There was nobody left willing to lend to them. Germany had already pulled some shady shit with mefo bills to keep being able to borrow money, and if anyone saw through it, their credit would be done for, nobody would lend money to the German government ever.

Without being able to borrow money, the Germans would not be able to keep up their social spending and re-armament, they would be forced to cut spending and unemployment would skyrocket, hyperinflation would come soon after as people discovered that Germany could not pay back it's loans.

The German economy was on the brink of collapse in 1939, they needed to use that expensive army to invade other countries and take their cash and gold reserves to prop up their own economy. If they waited, their own economy would implode.

>>29320906
WWII tanks come up for sale every now and then but they're usually American. German tanks only cone up for sale when the stars align and a drunk slav finds one in a swamp.

>>29320145
What do you propose these P4's and StuGs do against KV and IS tanks? They needed heavy tanks or they will continue to hit wall everytime they encounter an opposing heavy.

>>29320932

Be smart and take them out as a team, the Soviets didn't have that many KV and IS tanks.

Deal with them in the same way that Shermans were able to deal with Panthers and Tiger 2's. Germany was on the defensive, which makes flank shots even easier.

>>29320932
Nashorns and flak busses.

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>>29320929
>tfw even if i would find my panther in the swamp gubmit would force me to give it away.

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>>29320183
>post 1943 German air power
>giving decent cover
lmao anon ur funny

>>29320145
>when all they needed was a fuckton of StuGs and P4's?

The later versions of the panzer IV ended up being over loaded. Also the panzer IV is from 1936, and it started to show its age.

>>29320948
I think they gave back the Panther that that one guy had in his basement.

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>>29320969
But he had a lot of other stuff so he was technically a collector + he had this tank since the end of war or since the beginning of the 60s i think. + there was a huge backlash against german police for taking it from the guy that's why the gave it back. If i'd find a fresh panther chilling in the swamp it would either be sent to some museum or it'd be sold for ridiculous amount of cash since like you said german tanks are rare and many people with more cash than me would like to have it. The only thing i got left is playing warthunder and making models of panther.

>>29320953
>>29320206
>>29320204
go back to school and learn how to read, retards.

>>29320145
Germany couldn't outproduce the Soviets in numbers so they tried to outproduce them in Quality, which wasn't enough.

In the end poor judgement from the very top was the biggest problem for germany.

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>>29320677
>Work for the Third Reich
>Build badass Nazi missiles
>Operation Paperclip
>Be recruited by the USA
>Send people on the Moon

>>29320168
>>29320204
>>29320206
>>29320953
You people are a special kind of stupid, aren't you?

They didn't have enough gas to run 50,000 Panzer IVs/Stugs anyways.

>>29321289
If they had 50,000 Pz IVs, they could've taken Baku and gotten all the oil they wanted.

>>29320979
>with more cash than me would like to have it.
I think the last Panther wreck sold for around 8 mil or so, and that was a scuttled, rusted wreck.

>>29320145
>P4
>Overstressed suspension so that the tank is perpetually sagging forward

lolno

>>29320214
>Not rolling in a P1.5 million
FTFY

>>29320153
>>29320156

This.
The company I work for is owned by a German parent company. The great ideas the German engineers have come up with have all been dead ends of varying expense. One great idea just about killed the company and had to be extensively field-replaced in a recall.

The VW emissions scandal makes me chuckle. I can totally see one of the German managers in my company basically saying "JUST DO ZIS" when being told what he wanted was impossible, like upper management at VW did.

>>29320145
subject matter for stupid modern threads OP
and 'Tiger tanks are badass as fuck'

>>29320145
Because the 3.5 skilled tankers and half a gallon of gas they had left in '44 were best used in the best vehicle they could crap out.

>>29320303
very similar to america's military procurement of today.
i work at a company that deals with some surplus military machinery parts and the level of waste in the government is unbelievable as compared to the civilian sector.

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>>29320145
Everyone and his mum were creating special snowflake tanks & variants. Because everyone thought Tanks= Ships. With various classes playing a certain role.

This is why MBTs came into being to halt this madness.

>>29320739
I'm not just taling about Germany, using women in factories worked fine for the British for example.
Of cours using slaves and old men lowers production, that was my point.

>>29320380
It was sort of a necessity. With the rubber shortages, they needed to have the road wheels last as long as possible, and better weight distribution with those overlapping road wheels helped with that. Naturally, at a cost.

>>29320145
Because design was one of the propaganda weapons of the nazi regime.

>>29320277
>only

>>29324661
>heavy tank is only 10 tons more than a medium
Why the rustling?

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Any of you nerds have this shit? It's insane, it's got the angle and thickness of the armor of every part of the tank, as well as type of gun, not just caliber. Might even have optics.

Also, it even has the Pz.Kpfw II Ausf. J

>>29320145

There are several reasons for this.

>Idiotic procurement policy

Nazi Germany's military equipment planning was the epitome of nepotism - for instance, Hitler initially did not even consider the Henschel Tiger since he was a massive Porsche fanboy, only when the prototype was an utter failure Henschel got the contract. By then, Porsche had built more than hundred (!) hulls, some already completed, and they were hastily converted into the jury-rigged Ferdinand heavy tank destroyer to get some use out of them. When the Tiger II rolled around the same happened, and the completed turrets for the Porsche draft were used on Henschel hulls. This leads us to:

>Improvization

The Krauts didn't really get the massive scale of the war and were cocky in the beginning. While some generals warned that Panzers faced almost impenetrable enemies in France, nobody in the high command listened. As it dawned to them, they gave the Panzer IV a longer gun, converted the III into the Sturmgeschütz assault guns and tbeir field workshops turned EVERYTHING into a platform for AT weaponry, even humble Bren carriers. Eventually they liked these assault guns, and the concept stuck - the Jagdtiger, for instance, was requested by the troops themselves, expressing the need for a 128mm assault gun. Up next:

>Muh craftsmanship

They really believed that quality>quantity, but were proven horribly wrong later on. This led to the Panther ditching an actually good transmission design for better mass production capabilities. Despite this, the Panther still was a formidable design, its reliability problem being greatly exaggerated by /k/, and it costed little more than the IV, which surpassed the Panther in terms of breakdown rates later on due to its overloaded suspension (almost double the weight of early models).

(.cont)

>>29320395
Kv-1s was a daft idea, but the KV-2 was probably the last thing you wanted to see as a German on ostfront.

Pretty sure the tank's development stopped when the guy with the KV initials it was named for fell out of favor with Stalin and got un-personed.

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>>29325312
where do you even learn this stuff

>>29325312
>I am trying to be as wrong as I possibly can in a single post

>>29325185
It would be good, but its basically wikipedia in book form.

>>29325342
>you're wrong
>although I won't point out why or provide any argument or evidence

>>29320145
War time procurement was a nightmare compounded by the nazis obliterated logistics structure.

>>29325378
I don't think Wikipedia get's specific enough to mention the angle and thickness of armor on all parts, but I think this book is where alot of german tank articles on wikipedia come from

>>29325334
What were the "top 5 scary soviet tanks from a German perspective during WW2"?
I'd have to imagine it would be KV-2, IS-2, I/SU-152... and what else?

>>29325312

The Germans were in a dilemma between modernizing aging designs and keeping production up, and, in a way, did both. The planned Panther II was to receive some upgrades which then were incorporated in the G series, and just before Panzer IV production ceased they were retooled to be Jagdpanthers. The Tiger II is a notable exception, being a new design instead of a real successor. One may argue that the planbed frontally sloped Tiger I with a long 88 may have done the job, but for this one, see the craftsmanship part, it took overly long to make, hence only 1500 were produced.

Finally:

>Dick waving generals

Every commander assumed that what his unit needed was best for the entire army. This is documented very well in the exchanges between Guderian and other high-ranking officers, with multiple advocating a halt to Panzer production to roll with StuGs instead, while Guderian disliked the limits of casemate vehicles. These heated debates were fought quite seriously and wasted a lot of energy the armor think-tank may have used for constructive purposes.

>>29320145
When you're losing a war you might as well lose it spectacularly.

>>29325393
>tanks designed in 1936 were inadequate for a war in 1941
>this is because muh high ranking generals
Germany also focused heavily on mass-production. The idea that Germany didn't like having a lot of tanks is as stupid as it sounds.

>>29325334

>Pretty sure the tank's development stopped when the guy with the KV initials it was named for fell out of favor with Stalin and got un-personed.

Eh, the IS series is a beefed up KV for all intents and purposes. Plus, the slavlings realized the KV-2 was too impractical.

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>>29325415
I would think IS-2, SU/ISU152 would be 1 and 2. Snail like RoF due to 2 part ammunition but 122/152 are big ass guns. Also the IS-2 was pretty well armored. Heavy enough that the Tigers 88 L56 had issues with them.

>>29325472

>tanks designed in 1936 were inadequate for a war in 1941

Where the fuck did I say that? By getting the long KwK 40 they were keeping up pretty well, despite not being Sherman/T-34 level, though unlike those two their age began showing as of 1943.

>Mass production

A true total war mass production only started after Speer took the wheel in the industrial sector. Britain and Russia, by comparison, did this at the onset of the war, rationing food, confiscating useless stuff that could be useful as raw materials etc. Meanwhile America had such a fuckhueg capability they could go on happily while delivering gargantuan masses of aid to their allies.

>>29320906
Lets imagine for a moment that I´m a multi millionaire, would I be able to open up a small production line and build Pz.IVs or JU87s? Or are the blue prints for the things classified or something.

>>29325573
Literally everything you said in this thread is just memes and old myths. Go read a book, then come back with some facts.

>>29320979
The main problem was that he had a live naval torpedo in a residential district.

>>29320183
>supposed to ford rivers
Many of their tanks couldn't drive to a battle without blowing out their transmissions, there was no way that thing was fording a river.

>>29325185
they are all second hand or 200 pounds on amazon uk.

>>29323329
Just have one layer of wider wheels.

Not to mention that the Soviets tended not to put rubber on later in the war and they didn't bother with inerleving roadwheels.

They were more trouble than they were worth.

>>29325409
My point was more that that's all it does, I know that that's good for some, but it doesn't really go into that much detail, just like wikipedia does.
Then again I'm more interested in first hand accounts of the vehicles and their actual use on the battlefield rather than raw data.
Still I like the parts in it about conversions and captured equipment.

>>29325600

Please enlighten me if you know it all.

I get if you want to correct me, but that means more than saying "Yo wrong mang nice memes tho".

>>29325472
>didn't focus on mass production
>y...yes they did
The fuckers didn't enter a state of total war until Febuary of '43 and they didn't hit their peak of production until '44.

>muh high ranking generals
Where did he say that?

>>29325415
what Germans feared the most were ZiS-2 AT guns

>>29325697

This

You can see a tank, but not a well-concealed AT gun that goes unnoticed until striking

>>29325697
There's a quote from Michael Wittman that was along the lines of him stating he always celebrated the destroying of Soviet AT guns more than tanks.

>>29325739

Sure you're not thinking of Carius?

>>29325739
and with good reason...
fun fact: when faced with actual German tanks during Barbarossa, the STAVKA actually decided to halt production of ZiS-2 because of overpenetration issues
its production only resumed in 1943 when Tigers and Panthers began appearing on the Ostfront
against these, the penetration was deemed satisfactory

>>29325681
>The fuckers didn't enter a state of total war until Febuary of '43 and they didn't hit their peak of production until '44.
German economy was more or less completely mobilized for war BEFORE 1939. If its industry was not making munitions, it was making things that would make munitions. The reason German armaments production skyrocketed in 1943 was because that was when their earlier investments started coming on line and they could finally redirect steel and other materials to completed products rather than building factories and tools to make weapons.
Again, simple narratives appeal to simple people, but they are not always or even seldom the case.

>>29325786

The result is essentially the same.

>Nazis prepare their industry at a snail's pace and start the war early
>By then they already lost

So, what about the rest of what the anon in question said?

>>29325757
It's in the book "Michael Wittmann & the Waffen SS Tiger Commanders of the Leibstandarte in WWII". Carius might have said something similar but it was Wittman I'm thinking of.

>>29325983

Might be. Too lazy to look it up right now, I only got Tiger in the mud up my shelf though

>>29325976
>start the war early
If they had started the war any later they would have lost even harder

File: Schwerer_Sprengladungsträger_Borgward_IV_Panzermuseum_Munster.jpg (422KB, 1920x1277px) Image search: [Google]

422KB, 1920x1277px

>>29322404
>implying light tanks are a special snowflake class

I hardly think it's accurate to compere dedicated reconnaissance platforms to something like fucking pic related

>>29325415
I feel that the KV-2 would have been too rare to really be afraid of. It's scary when you face it, sure, but I feel like the odds of actually having to go against one as an infantryman or tanker would be some comfort.

I think it's hard to say "top 5", as they would have changed as the war progressed. I mean, early war if I were an infantryman or the commander of something like a PzKpfw. 38(t) then I may be pretty fucking scared of any T-34 or KV variants.

If it were later war then the T-34-85 would have been a scary opponent. I don't think anyone would say it was on par with the Panther, but it could kill Panthers and there were a lot of them. Same can be said of the SU-100.

The ISU-152 would be a nightmare as well; I don't want to think about being inside a Tiger taking a hit from an HE shell. The IS-2 would really follow along the same lines, if for no other reason than the size of the gun. I've heard varying reports on how effective the D-25T or A-19 or whatever they were calling the gun was against armor, but the mere fact that the Russians had a turreted tank in mass production with a gun a mere 6mm smaller by caliber than the largest gun you've mounted on a "conventional" super heavy tank destroyer is a big propaganda win for the Russians. If you're some poor volkssturm grunt on the streets of Berlin, I'm not thinking about how comfortable the crew of that tank in front of me is; Especially not when it lobs a 122mm HE round into my little pile of debris I'm calling a bunker. Likewise, if I'm some shock trooper, having that kind of firepower on the tank you're hiding behind would probably do wonders.

>>29320524
It has an MG, right at the front.

File: LeoC2 MEXAS.jpg (102KB, 1024x768px) Image search: [Google]

102KB, 1024x768px

>>29320648
Leo 1 is sexy, the C2 version is pure sex.

File: 1452502061205.png (355KB, 500x447px) Image search: [Google]

355KB, 500x447px

>>29326726

>>29320149
Everyone knows that the German's chief weapons were fear and vengeance weapons. Fear and vengeance weapons and surprise. And ruthless efficiency.

Among the German's many weapons were fear and vengeance weapons, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency.

>>29327030
kek'd

>>29320378
>full wrath
>only lands one shot out of 75

>>29320551
>Their only hope was to try and outclass their enemies, which they still failed at

No, they outclassed just about every nation militarily. They just couldn't withstand the force of half the world's millitaries barring down on them, all the while their already limited production and logistics was being fucked with from Allies bombings and Russia pushing them back to Germany, causing them to lose vital areas of resources.

>>29327382
You mean their *army outclassed every other armies.

Consider the following
>The Soviet airforce was completely incapable of dealing any significant damage against German panzers

>>29328480
Well, when you consider the Il-2's standard combat payload consisted of
>four 100kg bombs
>four to six RS rockets
it's a miracle they killed anything at all.

>>29326726
Nope, they were modified with a machine gun, a commander's cupola, wider tracks, and thicker armor on the front in September of 43 after almost half of them were lost at Kursk.

>>29328511
Did they manage to interdict much of the supply chain? Trucks and wagons behind the front line, stuff like that? Not rhetorical question, I am actually asking.

>>29328822
Depends on when and where you're talking about.

Generally it seems as though the VVS was able to throw planes at most problems until they fixed themselves, even as early as August 1941. The Il-2 may have been over-hyped, but they were pretty good at fucking up soft targets, as incidents like the Stalingrad air blockade showed. They also were fairly effective at suppression and slowing down units, with a lot of the success of the encirclement efforts during Bagration credited to Shturmoviks hitting crowded bridges and fords the retreating Germans were using.

Interdiction and local strategic raids were generally the focus of the DBA/ADD (depending on what year we're talking about). They were mostly flying Il-4s without escort, so their success depended on German fighters being occupied elsewhere. They don't seem to have been as effective on a per-plane basis as the Luftwaffe was, but they still seem to have undertaken similar missions - attacks against transportation hubs and distant airfields. The big incidents I can think of off the top of my head are the bombing efforts on Orel during Kursk and the raids on the Kerch airfields during the Kuban campaign.

Just how effective this was is unclear, though. The Germans seemed perpetually under-supplied even during the periods of Barbarossa where the VVS was virtually nonexistent, and the main source I have on the VVS (Red Phoenix Rising by Von Hardesty) seems to focus more on the reorganization and tactical focus of the VVS with only passing mentions of the Long-Range Aviation.

>>29320145
Can this meme die? The Germans were out producing for what they need.

"By 1943, the Allies had gained air superiority over Germany, and bombings of German cities and industry had become commonplace. However, the Allies in their strategic bombing campaign did not concentrate on industry, and Speer, with his improvisational skill, was able to overcome bombing losses. In spite of these losses, German production of tanks more than doubled in 1943, production of planes increased by 80 percent, and production time for Kriegsmarine's submarines was reduced from one year to two months. Production would continue to increase until the second half of 1944, by which time enough equipment to supply 270 army divisions was being produced—although the Wehrmacht had only 150 divisions in the field."

Fest, Joachim (1999), Speer: The Final Verdict

>>29329141
Tell me about that lack of ball bearings, fuel, proper steel for armor.

>>29329141
Didn't you read the other guy? 2 x 1 and 2 x 10000, both are "doubled". Except, German is 2x1. And only after Speer took over in desperation. Germany went into the war thinking it will be over in 2 years. As such, they didn't plan for long term. And even when doubled, the output was pitiful even when compared to Britain's war economy, let alone Russia or US.