RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

There was a show on TV locally last night about the early stages of WW2, up to the evacuation of Dunkirk. At one point they made a comparison of the British 2 pdr and the German 88 mm rounds, to show just how outgunned the British tanks were at that time. That seemed a bit odd.

By Dunkirk, wouldn't the vast majority of the German Panzer forces have been Panzer 1, 11 and 111's? And wouldn't they have been reasonably well matched for firepower with the British 2 and 6 pdr guns? The Panzer 1V might have been a different question, but I recall reading a book about the DAK some years back, in which the Germans commented how tough it was to be up against the British 25-pdr crews as a good crew could maintain a rapid rate of fire with the gun, and when elevated on it's turntable, the 25-pdr could be easily brought to bear on any armor trying to outflank it.

That got me thinking as to when exactly did the Germans start using the 88 mm as an anti tank gun in a serious way? And when did it make the jump to being a tank main gun? My last thought on the matter was how this timeframe might relate to the first introduction of the Sherman to WW2 combat? I'm just trying to wrap my head around the possibility that if the effectiveness of the German 88 was well known to the Allies before the first Shermans were delivered to combat units, why were they not better gunned from the start?

David

it was first used in action during the Spanish civil war (1936) as both an anti-aircraft and anti-tank gun but was developed in or around (1928)

as for why weren't Sherman's better armed i suppose that comes down to the available technology at that particular time plus cost ease of production and many other factors, or they didn't see the 88mm as much of a threat until it was too late, even if they did recognize the threat there wasn't mush they could have done about it no matter what tanks they had..................oz

I reckon the old saying necessity is the mother of invention comes in here.  The Germans were reasonably happy without a heavy tank (they had cancelled some programmes) until to their great surprise they came up against T34's that they couldn't easily knock out, and more importantly the Russians had them in large numbers.  The Russians also had excellent antitank guns and again in vast numbers, so a heavy tank was needed to overcome these too.

Also, heavy tank designs were partly a product of changing tactics/ fortunes - light, fast, general purpose (infantry support/ tank killer/ mobile artillery) tanks were the order of the day during blitzkrieg, heavy tanks suited to tank-tank battles, ambush and attritional fighting that occurred from 1942-3 onwards as the tide of war turned.  In the desert battles the tanks on both sides were pretty well matched, and although the Tiger was fielded, it was in small numbers and already the fortunes were beginning to turn.

The last few years of the war saw an explosion in up-gunning on both sides generally limited by the physical size of the turret/ turret ring.  The use of 88mm anti aircraft guns was I believe originally an expedient, slowly brought into mainstream tactics in 1940 because the Matilda was very well armoured and difficult for the mainstream Panzer III to knock out.

Why was the Sherman poorly gunned in the first instance? - well to be honest the Americans were just not keeping up with the speed of progress in europe at the time - by the end of the war they had caught up because they had to but it takes time even for their large industrial base to design/ adapt.  The Lee/ Grant was a short term get-around to field a reasonable sized gun, and the Firefly a particularly good British development, but put simply the hull/ turret ring were not designed with serious up-gunning in mind, and equally the guns available at the time weren't designed to 'slot in' to a turret.  It should also be noted that the pacific war the sherman was adequately gunned because the Japanese didn't go for constant up-gunning like in europe. 

Its also interesting to me that the Germans with their limited industrial resources developed so many short term tank killers with fixed turrets as an expedient to up gunning, whereas generally the allies did not - probably because we had a much stronger industrial base and could adopt the quantity approach.  I read somewhere that Britain alone had something like twice the German industrial capacity in the early 1940's (even before we began to destroy their capability with huge bombing raids), and so when you add USSR & USA that really tips the balance.  Whilst the Tigers could and did achieve kill ratios of 1 tiger for every 20 T34's, this was still not enough because the USSR was building T34's at an even higher rate, and Britain & the USA were also building huge quantities of 'standard' tanks for the western and southern fronts.

By the time of Dunkirk the Germans were already developing a heavy tank with a big powerful gun (75mm or 105mm) they ended up with the 88mm in the Tiger.

The British had no interest in tanks and saw them as infantry support vehicles. They wanted something that was heavily armoured to travel across no-mans land knocking out enemy machinegun positions with the infantry walking behind (as in WWI). There was no need to develop large antitank guns because they didn't envision tank vs tank battles.

Basically the Germans knew that the Tank would be a main weapon in it's armoury where as the British Generals saw the Tank as something that was being forced on them. The Generals being "old boys" were all cavalry types and didn't want to lose their horses.


The Russians secretly helped the Germans  develop their tanks. Under the "Treaty of Versailles"  Armed aircraft, tanks and armored cars were  prohibited in Germany so they built tracked "tractors" and had Manoeuvres  in Russian territory which help the Russians developed their own tanks.

T34 was a direct descendant of the American Christie tank of the late 20's-early 30's. Fast, and able to shed his tracks and be even faster on a road, the US Govt rejected Mr Christie's tank designs and the two (I think) prototypes he built with his own funds. He, again if memory serves. shopped the design around in Europe, and SSSR was the only ones to say "oh heck yes, we'll buy a couple and the rights to make them". His suspension was novel for the time, and was used in the T34 to great advantage.
Numbers game. SSSR built somewhere around 97000 AFV's during the 4 years of war. They started the war with roughly 24000 AFV's, and ended with about 22000 AFV's, albeit of somewhat better quality than the original herd. Staggering looses to say the least. Depending on whose figures you use, somewhere between 50 and 60 thousand of that production was T34's. USA built from what I have read almost 60000 Shermans and variants. Germany built less than 500 KT's, 1700 Tiger ones (memory again), 5000 Panthers, and a larger number of P4's. Add 'em up. And this does not cover the roughly 25000 AFV's England built.
USA built the Sherman because High Command had the design, it was simple, easy to produce, and ready to go. They knew it would not do well against the P4, let alone the Tigers and Panther which came along after the Sherm. However, their mindset was tanks don't fight tanks, tank destroyers take care of the enemy tanks. Obviously they did not consult the Brits or Russians on that little idea. Patton himself rejected the Pershing as not needed. When a publik scandal threatened to erupt over USA tank and crew losses as GI's began to write home about it from Africa and Italy, the fetuccini hit the fan and the Pershing was finally rushed in to production, albeit not in time for D Day.
Sev

And somewhere in all of that, I believe, the Canadian Military cobbled together a Ram Tank and 3.7 " Anti aircraft gun and tested the heck out of it at Camp Borden, finding it every bit the equal to the German 88. I think that project died because the British insisted the 3.3 " was supposed to be an anti aircraft gun, no ifs , ands or buts!

I wonder if those test machines are still sitting out at Borden somewhere...

David

Addendum:  Sorry about the incorrect 3.3 reference. Should have been 3.7 as now amended. With a little further reading, on the RAM /3.7 project, I found a photo of one of them that had been shipped to England for testing somewhere. Looks like it could be in the middle of firing trials. Haven't a clue where. The vehicle looks a bit like the German Elephant, but with the gun mounted at the forward end of the hull.

D

I did alway wonder why in desperate time the Allies didnt copy the Germans and use the fixed turret method to fit a large calibre gun onto a smaller tanke such as the Stug & Jagdpanthers?

David,could you find and maybe post a picture of the Canadian 3.7 gun vehicle? Sax

i think this is it..............oz

Crispy wrote: I did alway wonder why in desperate time the Allies didnt copy the Germans and use the fixed turret method to fit a large calibre gun onto a smaller tanke such as the Stug & Jagdpanthers?

I think it was a case of different design philosophies. Th Germans were reusing hull designs to the most they could. The Allies mostly saw tanks as infantry support weapons, and so designed dedicated tank destroyers from scratch, and if your going to build it from scratch, why not add a turret?
Cheers,
Rik