189 replies to this topic

[EnsignExpendable]

polarticus, on Sep 17 2013 - 18:08, said:

Funny how much rage wehraboos garnerIf you know their wrong, just ignore them.

But trolling wehraboos is fun! Plus, if I turn one person on to the path of truth, it's all worth it.I'd prefer thousands though, one doesn't give a lot of ad money :P

[Waelwulf]

Mechanize, on Sep 17 2013 - 09:00, said:

In the comments by him.
"I should write something about the Bf-109 as its been misrepresented by Anglos (who hate it) and FW-190 fans (who feel the Butcherbird was the best). Are you referring to the Carson report? That was so ridiculous it has been debunked in several forums."

Huh? I'm confused because I haven't met an 'Anglo' pilot that hates the Bf-109 - lot of RCAF and RAF pilots thought it was a wonderful machine, and the airworthy ones always garner a large crowd of airforce vets in Canada and the UK.
I see he's taking the classic conspiracy route of the "truth" being persecuted by the man/system/ideology/etc.
ETA: fixed spelling

Edited by Waelwulf, Sep 17 2013 - 19:26.

[Zinegata]

Walter_Sobchak, on Sep 17 2013 - 14:00, said:

I read the original blog post and the comments.  Honestly, while I would take issue with some of the authors claims, I didn't think it was that bad.  Nor do I think picking every sentence apart, separating it from it's context and responding with a snarky comment is a particularly constructive form of criticism.  I also did not see where the author of the post referred to EE as "a dirty commie" in his response.  I certainly don't think this merits being compared to the idiocy that is Mike Sparks.  I think people are overreacting a bit on this one.

Right after he makes the completely wrong claim that Soviet and German loss accounting methods are the same. Sure, he said "Russian" but that's really just a euphemism for dirty commie stemming from McCarthy-style debating.

[Zinegata]

Christos goes blubbery and claims "But I used annual figures!", without realizing that I questioned his ignorance on the loss-counting methodology. My reply:

Quote

Again, you're ignoring what has been said.

Those yearly statistics you mentioned are counted differently.

Soviet losses count any tank that has been sent back to the factory.

German losses count only tanks that are unrecoverable.

Take this example:

A T-34 tank participates in the battle of Smolensk in 1941. It is knocked out, but recovered. It is repaired and rejoins action in early 1942 during the "Winter Offensive". It is gets into a traffic accident requiring replacement of the engine, and is sent to Stalingrad's Red October Factory for the repair. Later in 1942, as the Germans attempt to take the city, the repaired tank is rushed out to fight; where it finally dies for the last time after it is hit several times by a 88mm towed anti-tank gun, which burns the vehicle and ruins it.

Soviet loss records would in fact count this same tank three times in their books - once every time it gets sent back to the factory or when it's rendered unrecoverable. Three losses for the same tank.

Now, take a German Panzer III. It participates in the Battle of France in 1940, wherein it runs headlong into the Char B2 at Stonne and is knocked out. However, it is recovered, repaired, and upgunned to a short 50mm gun - in time to be sent to the Greek campaign against the British. There, it falls off a mountain side and is sent to the factory for repairs, but it is fixed in time to fight in Operation Barbarossa. It survives in its current form until December 1941, where it is knocked out by a 76.2mm gun along Volokomask. But the chassis is recovered, and the tank is rebuilt into a Stug III assault gun, which then participates in "Case Blue" before being finally being "irrecoverable" after the Stug was trapped in the Stalingrad pocket and captured by the Soviets.

In German loss records, this tank - which was "lost" four times - would only be counted once in their loss records.

(Note: Both of the above cases are merely examples to show the stark difference between German and Soviet accounting for losses. I'm not saying there was literally a Panzer III that fought at Stonne, Greece, Volokamask, and Stalingrad)

So really, stop the condescending tone when you clearly have no idea about the difference between German and Soviet loss-counting methodologies; which you would have known had you actually bothered to read the books and look at the methodology and not just the numbers.

"Annual" is not a methodology. Nobody with the most basic knowledge of accounting practices is fooled by your blatant ignorance of simple facts; and anyone with the most basic knowledge of WW2 production figures would know that if we used your "figures" (which again count the same tank lost multiple times), the Soviets should have had nearly zero or negative tanks to start the Cold War with, instead of the tens of thousands of tanks they actually had.

[EnsignExpendable]

Is he also ignoring the many logical inconsistencies in his article that require no historical knowledge to discover?

[Zinegata]

EnsignExpendable, on Sep 18 2013 - 03:51, said:

Is he also ignoring the many logical inconsistencies in his article that require no historical knowledge to discover?

He pretty much ignores everything and just repeats his bad claims; and then tells people to "go read".

You know, usual bad debating tactics.

[EnsignExpendable]

At least he can't call you a communist, which seems to be the usual debating tactic around these parts.

[Brickfight]

Zinegata, on Sep 18 2013 - 03:53, said:

He pretty much ignores everything and just repeats his bad claims; and then tells people to "go read".

You know, usual bad debating tactics.

"Go read book that supports my claims. No particular section, just read it oh wait you're not gonna I win."

"Show me one place where I said exactly word for word what you paraphrased."

"He/I were veterans are you going to shit on my/his service to this country?"

[Waelwulf]

Brickfight, on Sep 18 2013 - 04:21, said:

""He/I were veterans are you going to shit on my/his service to this country?"

Yes. Yes I am.

I run into this form of argument all the time here tied into some pretty strong myths/tropes here: The Militia Myth, Canadians never committed war-crimes, Canadians were all volunteers/non-racist/behind the war, Canada never had internment camps, etc.

This guy has taken the technical complexity of German armour and extrapolated the common folly of technical complexity = technical superiority = combat superiority. Simplest way I combat this is by pointing out that the Soviets, Americans, and yes even the British designed their tanks to be 'good enough'; claiming the Germans were 20% more combat efficient (or whatever number they pull out of their ass) and allowing for that to be true  means nothing if a) you make >20% less, b) they require >20% service time, c) they require >20% training time, d) they require >20% logistic support, etc, etc, etc. So called Military Science/History "experts" who don't understand that, don't understand basic strategic concepts which then in turn calls into question all of their argument.

[EnsignExpendable]

Brickfight, on Sep 18 2013 - 04:21, said:

"He/I were veterans are you going to shit on my/his service to this country?"

Maybe they should make service mandatory in the US so there isn't any "I FOUGHT FOR YOUR FREEDOMS" dickwaving. Yeah, cool, and so did I, and so did that guy, and so did everyone else. Your occupation doesn't replace your argument. Engineers still have to give calculations as proof, they don't get to go "I AM AN ENGINEER, DO NOT QUESTION ME!".

[Zinegata]

You know, every large-scale empire that made "serving in the military" a high badge of office ended up like the Romans.

[Walter_Sobchak]

Waelwulf, on Sep 18 2013 - 04:40, said:

Yes. Yes I am.

I run into this form of argument all the time here tied into some pretty strong myths/tropes here: The Militia Myth, Canadians never committed war-crimes, Canadians were all volunteers/non-racist/behind the war, Canada never had internment camps, etc.

This guy has taken the technical complexity of German armour and extrapolated the common folly of technical complexity = technical superiority = combat superiority. Simplest way I combat this is by pointing out that the Soviets, Americans, and yes even the British designed their tanks to be 'good enough'; claiming the Germans were 20% more combat efficient (or whatever number they pull out of their ass) and allowing for that to be true  means nothing if a) you make >20% less, b) they require >20% service time, c) they require >20% training time, d) they require >20% logistic support, etc, etc, etc. So called Military Science/History "experts" who don't understand that, don't understand basic strategic concepts which then in turn calls into question all of their argument.

I must have missed something.  I read through the article in question and the comments.  I did not notice the author mention his service to his country or use it as a shield against criticism.  I did not read the other posts on his blog.

[rossmum]

Waelwulf, on Sep 18 2013 - 04:40, said:

Yes. Yes I am.

I run into this form of argument all the time here tied into some pretty strong myths/tropes here: The Militia Myth, Canadians never committed war-crimes, Canadians were all volunteers/non-racist/behind the war, Canada never had internment camps, etc.

You have given me hope that one day, when I return home, I will come back to a province that isn't entirely filled with morons. Keep goodposting.

[Walter_Sobchak]

EnsignExpendable, on Sep 17 2013 - 00:26, said:

Except not really. The provided chart has the PzIV marked for highest instability, notably higher than the T-34.

I suspect that you might be reading the chart incorrectly EE.  Please note that the Pz IV appears twice on the chart.  The one with the better performance (better than T-34) is labeled Pz IV Serie (series) while the one with worse performance is labeled Pz IV Kegelstumpffedem (volute springs).  Since the Pz IV did not normally have volute springs, we can assume this was some sort of experimental version and the true PZ IV performance is indicated by the line labeled "Serie."  That means the author was corrert in his original statement that "A German test of tank pitching motion at the Kummersdorf testing facility (1km undulated track) showed that the T-34 had the worst stability compared to the Pz IV, Tiger, Sherman and Panther."  It's interesting to note that the Germans experimented with volute springs.  Obviously, they had less success with them than the Americans did as evidenced by the data in this chart regarding the M4 Sherman stability.

Edited by Walter_Sobchak, Sep 18 2013 - 23:08.

[EnsignExpendable]

Perhaps I should have given it more than a cursory glance.

[Wyvern2]

He's still wrong in a bunch of ways and im surprised the M4 is far less stable then the Panther, not that it matters i suppose, it could still shoot better cuz of the stabilizer

[Walter_Sobchak]

Wyvern2, on Sep 18 2013 - 23:15, said:

He's still wrong in a bunch of ways and im surprised the M4 is far less stable then the Panther, not that it matters i suppose, it could still shoot better cuz of the stabilizer

Everything I have ever read on the subject says that the overlapping torsion bar suspensions in the late war German tanks gave an excellent ride.  The problem with them is that they were complicated, heavy, expensive to build and hard to repair and prone to getting clogged up with mud and ice.  It was a typical case of the Germans sacrificing practicality for "performance."

Edited by Walter_Sobchak, Sep 18 2013 - 23:36.

[Xlucine]

So what's up with the chart saying "T-34 (sturmg.)"? SU-85?

[rossmum]

Xlucine, on Sep 19 2013 - 00:22, said:

So what's up with the chart saying "T-34 (sturmg.)"? SU-85?

Was just about to post that myself.

[Walter_Sobchak]

rossmum, on Sep 19 2013 - 00:28, said:

Was just about to post that myself.

I noticed that as well after I made the post.  Perhaps they were using an SU-85 in their test.  I would think that the weight distribution on an SU-85 would be different than a T-34.  That might affect the test performance?  Does anyone know if the Germans referred to SU-85s as Stugs or as Panzerjager?