Top 5 Tank Destroyers

How many cases would satisfy you that AFV with a fixed gun are at a disadvantage when their positions are known and that their displacing to a new firing position often results in their destruction rather than a successful withdrawal.

Would that include the half-dozen or so from S. PzJr Abt 653 that were destroyed by aircraft or artillery fire?

Neither can Jadgtigers judging from the historical record. March rates per day were generally set at 30 to 40 km (20 to 30 miles). In a road march that long one could expect about a third to half the vehicles to suffer some mechanical failure with about half of those being sufficently serious to immobilize the vehicle and require recovery (if possible). In most tactical situations the Jadgtiger could not slug it out with larger numbers of opposing tanks. There are several reasons for this. These include:

Firing the 12.8cm gun produced an enormous flash and a huge amount of smoke. In fact, the smoke was a serious enough problem that it often obscured the view of the gunner sufficently that he had to stop firing and wait for it to clear.

The JadgTiger was prohibited from making zero radius turns (eg., pivot turns). This was due to the transmission and final drive problems as such turns almost always resulted in a transmission or final drive failure immobilizing the vehicle.

The vehicle could not move any distance without having the main gun in its gun travel lock. This was due to the weight of the gun that in turn wore out the delicate mechanisms in the aiming system and sights causing them to become misaligned. In fact, it was found that just prolonged firing could cause a misalignment as this happened to a number of vehicles during training and test firing not to mention during combat and movement.
Worse, the travel lock had to be manually disengaged by a crew member that had to exit the vehicle to do so. In an immediate combat situation or one where the vehicle was suprised and under fire this might be difficult to accomplish in a timely manner.


If you really want DR, I could put up a list of every combat action the Jadgtiger participated in and pretty conclusively show that it does not live up to the reputation you want to give it.

 

That does make some sense, in so far as such is possible with late war German military production. Thanks a lot.

 

I say envolope or bypass.

I am more numerous than you. I can afford a few tank losses but you have a pair or handful. So, if I fix you frontally with one coy and hit you in the flank or rear with another, your lack of traverse will expose your flank to at least one of my task forces. In real life, the scenarios outlined produced kill-ratios highly favorable to the attackers, not defenders.

Moving to a new position means that you have to catch up with my mobile group of M4/T-34s. Then you are doomed, for your lack of reliability and mobility means you cannot escape encirclement. Note this is what actually happened in real life. The Americans and Brits found plenty of disabled super-heavy panzers-- dead-lined presumably when the Germans tried to extricate or manoeuver.

A dominating tactical weapon, if it can't fit into an operational role, is useless.

Nonsense. The Russians knocked out an entire Tiger Abt. with massed artillery fire during the Vistula-Oder Offensive. I cannot count the number of times artillery stopped King Tigers in the West.

Think about it. Tracks, optics barrel and flank armor against 155mm rounds and 500 lbs bombs? Top armor against rocket and cannon fire? Artillery and air-delivered munition, of sufficient volume, can and will destroy or operational-kill any AFV.

Bunkers are protected against indirect fire and CAS. AFVs aren't. You hold tanks in reserve for counterattacks because deploying armor well-forward will expose your most important weapon to enemy firepower.

 

The jagdtiger would be an effective weapon in flat, open terrain where its guns massive range would truly shine. However, on the western front most tank battles where at close range (battle of the bulge, normandy battles), and in this environment the jagdtiger really sucks. For example, the elefant was extremely succesful at the battle of kursk,(which was flat, open terrain) as its massive gun and armor meant that no soviet vehicle could challenge it. If the jagdtiger was used in kursk or engagements like that it would truly shine. However, it never was used in that environment, and was used in close-quarters engagements where its slow turning speed and mobility meant it was more of a liability than an advantage. I will agree that it was not a successful tank destroyer.

On the other hand, i believe the m18 to be severely dysfunctional. While on paper its speed over armor approach looks good, in reality it is terrible. In fact, its side armor was so thin that 7.92mm AP rounds could penetrate it. That meant a burst from an MG34 or MG42 might destroy it. Its top was also open, exposing the crew to the elements as well as grenades, snipers, and r shell fragments. Its gun (76mm, same on the up-gunned sherman) was also mediocre, and could not penetrate the panthers frontal armor at any range, and could only penetrate the tigers frontal armor at close range. Its penetration was also inferior to the 75mm KwK L/48 used on up-gunned panzer IV's. Its only advantages where its reliability (fast engine change speed), range, and speed. Besides that it really is a bad TD, as anything on the battlefield except for maybe a pistol or SMG poses a threat to it.

now my revised list:

1. Jagdpanther (all around good stats)
2. Su-100 (all around good stats)
3. Elefant (amazing armor/firepower)
4. Nashorn (amazing firepower)
5. ISU-122 (all around good stats, but slow reload time and ammo capacity)

ISU/SU-152 not included because of slow reload time, inaccuracy at long range, and limited ammo capacity

All american TDs discounted for lack of armor and firepower (m36 jackson is exception to firepower, but its gun is still inferior to the 88mm L/71 and 75mm l/70)

 

Generally you do not pick and chose your battlefields, you simply go where the enemy is, or to a point that will inflict some kind of loses on your enemy whether it be economically, militarily or logistical. Because of this the battlefields will vary from long open plains like the Russian front, or the bocage country of the Normandy areas, or perhaps the hill slopes of Austria and Northern Italy, or even a large urban city where every type of AFV regardless of speed, and maneuverability mean nothing.

For these reasons your tank in general needs to be good in an all round performance, which is why the SU 100 the StuG III and even the Hetzer did so well in combat. They did well in open terrain due to there speed, they did good in Normandy due to there maneuverability around the heavy wooded areas, they did as good as any tank could in the mountains due to there reliability meaning they didn't have to wait for weeks for new parts to be brought forward through the difficult terrain, and they did as good as any SPG could do in a city due to all the above.

The heavier SPG's such as the elephant, nashorn, SU 122, SU 152 and all those other wasteful SPG's built were lacking in either one area or another, whether it is the elephants mechanical, fuel, or reliability problems, the nashorns lack of armour, and so on and on.

 

Actually, while battles on the Western Front were fought in closer ranges than the East in general, long range duels did occur. The Three Battles of Caen was fought at exceedingly long ranges. In the 2nd Ardennes, Peiper's Tiger Bs engaged 3rd Armored Division's tanks at ranges over 3km in the La Gleize cauldron, but in spite of inflicting heavy losses, all Tiger B tanks were disabled or knocked out by the attackers in return. Of course, the huge number of mechanical breakdowns virtually ensured that the Tigers were even more outnumbered than it would have been. Long range or short range engagement, lack of mobility get your force destroyed.

This is quite absurd. 7.92mm AP ammunition was not issued to the infantry or panzer forces. I have never once read a M18 that was knocked out by machine-gun fire that punched through its armor.

You might want to double check that. TD units have priority access to HVAP ammo. Both Tiger and Panther were vulnerable to it.With regular ammo, the Tiger E's front hull armor was vulnerable at 1km range. A salvo fire of 76mm at 300m stand a good chance at knocking out a Panther. But all those are red herring. The M18 were designed to outflank & ambush, not to go into slugfests. That was also how the M18 were used, and judging from what you have posted, you might be surprised by the proficiency of the American tank destroyer arm at killing panzers.

 

I think you have the 76mm on the m18 confused with the 17 pounder. Here is the penetration for the american 76

regular APCBC:

500m: 93mm

1000m: 88mm

HVAP:

500m: 146mm

1000m: 127mm

as you can see the regular APCBC round can only penetrate the tigers frontal armor at close range, and the HVAP ammunition can only penetrate the panthers frontal armor at close range. and even though HVAP ammunition was prioritized in the tank destroyer units, it was still very rare.

the turret and hull sides of the m18 were 12mm thick. The german AP rounds could penetrate 12-13mm up to 100m

from wikipedia:

while a burst from an MG42 or MG34 might not destroy the vehicle, it might kill some crew members. Also, you have not acknowledged that the m18's open top is a severe liability, as the crew is exposed to the elements, as well as grenades, shrapnel, snipers, and any fire from above. A german soldier could probably run up to an m18 and throw a grenade in the turret, igniting the turret ammunition and killing the crew. And if an artillery shell hits a tree (treeburst) or explodes in mid air, the crew will receive a rain of shrapnel. If is sniper is hiding in a tall building, he could pick of the crew in the turret. And if a mortar hits the vehicles turret, the whole crew will be killed.

 

It might interest you to know that the M 18 had the lowest loss to kill ratio of any US tank destroyer too. There are documented cases of crews using that tremendous speed to their advantage in taking out enemy armor (like at Averrances and the October battles in France) and also literally dodging enemy fire the same way. Simply tracking a vehicle moving at 50 mph or more as a crossing target is difficult at best using then current technology

 

what is the m18s Kill/loss ratio? Tigers had a 6:1 KD ratio, panthers had a 3:1 ratio, and king tigers had an 11:1 ratio, so even if the m18's kill/loss ratio is higher than other US vehicles (like the sherman, which had a 0.25-0.5/1 kill/loss ratio) it still probably is lower than 1:1. And M18s can only move 50mph on a road. On difficult terrain they can probably only manage the speed of a sherman, which means even though they are fast there speed advantage is minimal at best (while it may be extremely useful for long-range travel on roads, in combat tanks dont travel nearly as fast). Also considering tigers and panthers can pivot turn, the m18 would have a tough time trying to flank german tanks. Finally, the tank destroyer doctrine was designed to counter the blitzkrieg. By the time of the normandy battles, the blitzkrieg doctrine was long abandoned, and germans tanks would often lie in camouflaged positions waiting to ambush allied tanks that passed. In this situation, the tank destroyer really is a bad idea, because tank destroyers were designed to get the crucial first shot, but in this situation german tanks would often get the first shot (battle of viccars-bollage), and with this tank destroyers are very vulnerable. In fact, tank destroyers fired more HE shells than AP ones, indicating tank destroyers were often used as the tanks they were supposed to support (there were used as assault guns mainly, due to a lack of targets).

 

Not true. Please do not even try and quote Wiki as a source.
There were 120 TI and 40 TII destroyed in Normandy this would mean 1220 Destroyed Allied tanks. Add in the Panthers 2000+ (for 3:1) and this means all the 900 PzIV's, 400 Stugs, Jagdpanzers, 88's, A/T guns,mines and infantry weapons got very little between them
This 'kill ratio' claim is just absurd. Why anyone still believes it is beyond me.

Where did you get that figure from? Your backside?

Around a third of all hits were on a tanks front aspect. Thus the majority of hits were on its side. Twice as many side hits as front hits. It would appear 'flanking shots' were the norm.

 

You do know he got that off Wikipedia

 

It's wrong. Have you calculated the slope effect of American test plates? Tiger E's frontal armor was 100mm with about 10 degrees slope. US test plates are sloped at 30 degrees. See the problem with your little table now? Furthermore, the Tiger's brow and front superstructure armor did not have the same ballistic resistance of its mantlet.

Also, whatever your numbers say, it is empirically wrong to say that the American 76 cannot knock out a Panther frontally. Surprise, surprise--the US Ordnance reported that the 76mm APCBC had a 1/3 probability to penetrate Panther mantlet at close range. For Panther model A & D, any AP round that scored a hit in the bullet trap could penetrate, including the lowly 75mm.

In fact, the Germans reported that 76mm-armed American tank and antitank units deliberately withheld fire until Panthers were within 300 meters.

Which is totally irrelevant. German ground forces did not have AP rounds for their machine-gun or rifle.

Puft, anyone can write anything on Wikipedia. Beyond technical specifications, production history and description of variants, their articles one weapon systems are generally poor and unsupported by facts even after editors acknowledged an error because it is too time consuming to change it.

The German Marder series, the closest doctrinal equivalent to the American SP tank destroyer, is also an open-top vehicle and was reckoned to be one of the very effective antiarmor weapons. In spite of its lack of a rotating turret and paper-thin armor. And it was slower than the M18 by far.

The highest scoring tank destroyer battalion, the 702nd, claimed 10 kills for every tank destroyer lost. Kill ratio of about 2~3:1 was "typical" of self-propelled TD battalions. Those numbers are next to useless anyway because no one can be expected to report enemy losses accurately after the heat of combat. As your Sherman tank kill ratio... I agree with Kenny there, it's complete crap.

According to the Germans, they sent 2300 tanks and SP assault guns to Normandy and about 100-150 made it back. Allied armor suffered the complete lost of 4000 tanks in Normandy. The operational research statistics from the Germans, the British and the Americans agreed that the greatest number of tank losses and kills were made by AP rounds, mostly likely fired by a tank or SP tank destroyer. Now in terms of the proportion of enemy tanks killed and friendly tanks lost, Normandy was probably the most successful German campaign in the West. Between Normandy and Ardennes the German panzer forces spent most of its time being outnumbered 20:1 and was slaughtered accordingly with little to show. After Ardennes the situation was comparable but worse.

Now you go think about it.

 

I thought only around about 15% of Shermans killed in WW2 were by German tanks?? The vast majority of kills against Shermans seems to have been SP's, anti-tank guns ,mines and Panzerfaust's.

 

Hello ickysdad,

I wouldn't have any precise data on this, however I would strongly agree with you in that matter, since it applies to all tanks in battle.

Reading on Tigers in the East, far more of the Panzer monsters were deactivated by Soviet AT guns and mines then by Soviet tanks.

A distant family relative was serving in a para unit and between Nov 44 to March 45 he hardly recalls having seen German Panzers alongside them when they faced at average dozens of allied tanks.

Regards
Kruska

 

That is correct. Let me rephrase. What I want to say is that if we merge losses credited to SP assault guns and tanks, than "another AFV" would be the single most dangerous weapon type. That does not mean fausts, ATGs and mines didn't claim the majority of armor losses.

I do have a digital copy of the report on recorded Allied tank losses, but I don't remember its source website.

I remember 40% of all German tank and SP assault gun losses inspected in Normandy was also attributed to armor piercing rounds. That should be somewhere on this website. I expect Allied antitank gun to claim a smaller percentage of total kills than its German counterpart because the Allies were doing the attacking reducing the usefulness of towed guns.

 

Reading the war story of an American independent tank battalion that fought in the same period confirms that impression. They rarely encounter Panzers.

 

I'd like for DR to explain how the US 105mm using common shell (eg., heavy wall HE) can smash in the glacis of a Panther out to about 500 to 700 yards. I have photos of the results in a book when the US did tests of this.

Oh, the 704th TD Bn was the highest scoring tank destroyer battalion in the ETO. It was equipped with M 18. Its official list of kills is:

73 tanks
17 SP guns
25 AT guns
16 artillery pieces
70 vehicles
1 aircraft
1 locomotive with 20 cars

This is probably a bit low from the actual destruction they wrought as it only includes officially credited items. Many times units didn't always include every detail in their official after action reports or daily reports thus credit would not be given for something they did.

On an unrelated note, I think DR should read some of the plethora of other stuff already on this board on this and related subjects:

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/10263-sherman-ace.html

http://www.ww2f.com/weapons-wwii/12399-panzer-iv-vs-m4.html

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/9861-best-tanks-aces.html

 

The sherman tank ace mentioned above destroyed 258 enemy vehicles, not enemy tanks. Kurt Knispel, for example, had 168 confirmed enemy tank kills. However, some people think the number may be as high as 195, as he was very modest and was very willing to credit somebody else with a tank kill if he was not sure. Kurst Knispel probably destroyed hundreds, if not thousands of enemy vehicles such as half-tracks, trucks, jeeps, e.t.c. That sherman ace probably destroyed less than 10 german tanks, considering a shermans armor and gun. It says in the article he destroyed a panther at 1500 yards. At that range, the sherman cannot even penetrate its side armor.

here is the article on knispel: Kurt Knispel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

1. there were no tiger II's in normandy (they were 3 but they broke down before seeing combat), and 90 tiger I's. The majority of german tanks destroyed in normandy were bombing and strafing runs, so most of them probably were destroyed before they even saw combat.

2. those german tanks statistics are an average of their kill/loss ratio in all battles, not just normandy (like kursk for example). The sources come from a book on german tanks (It was a book on the waffen SS, i forgot the title though). The sherman statistics come from a lot of sources. Some say 10 shermans were destroyed for every kill, while others say 3 were. I just averaged all of them.

 

That is definitely not true, read up on the SmK & SmK(H) rounds used by German MG's. AP rounds were used extensively in German rifles & machine guns, it infact became std. in 1943 when the SmE round superceded the sS round as the std. infantry round.