 mode of power was still the horse, but the German spearhead was almost entirely newer tanks (post 1937) while the Soviet tanks ranged from the early 30s, many of those tanks broke down. Logistically Russian commanders would have to stop frequently and assess if those tanks could be repaired quickly, or if they had to be abandoned (and what to do with their crews etc). If a Russian column sent 100 tanks to engage the Germans perhaps 20 or 30 wouldn’t make it to the battle, and then they would either have to engage well below full strength or try to withdraw and lose another dozen or more to mechanical failures on the retreat.
By the time the Russians got T-34 tank production up to a level that allowed them parity, and later superiority, they were already deep in the shit. Stalingrad was a major production center and at points rolled tanks right off the line into battle, which means not forming up major groups and inadequate training for the crew and testing for defects.
This is misleading by a lot. Barbarossa started in mid 1941, Soviet tank production was just beginning (in volume terms) in late mid to late 1941. 1,000 Panzers built during 1940 would be almost entirely ready for the front lines (in terms of production, movement, crew familiarity, testing etc), while they are facing up against 2,800 T-34s (just examples!) built during 1941 I would guess that given build up times (2,800 T 34s built in 1941, 12,500 built in 1942) at least 75% of those were finished after Barbarossa began and perhaps as high as 85 or 90%. Even those that had been built, a fair number of them wouldn’t have been on the front lines (or if they were had rushed through training and checks).
Additionally the Soviets launched their major counter offensive in December of 1941, which fits the timeline of German tech superiority wearing out reasonably well by your numbers.
If we look at stocks (numbers from wikipedia), initial frontline strength of the German army was 3,350 tanks and 11,000 for the Soviets. If we use your numbers and I am correct that a much larger portion of Soviet tanks were made in the 2nd half of 1941 than in the first half then these numbers heavily support my supposition that the German tank line was made heavily of newer tanks, while the majority of Soviet tanks on the front lines were older.
Because (iirc) the Spitfires engaged the Messerschimtts while the Hurricanes were mostly shooting down Stukas and other bombers (frequently after their bombing loads were dropped). The basic game plan was since the Hurricanes can’t stand up to the Messerschimtts it was use the Spitfires to delay so the Hurricanes can get some kills on the bombers.
Edit: Also the 2:1 ratio was the ratio at the begging of the Battle of Britain, I don’t recall if that was the ratio the whole way through.
@baconbacon:
Precisely. May I direct your attention to earlier in the thread, when I gave the 1942 production figures (a year when the Soviets built more T-34s than they’d had tanks in their entire force in mid-1941) and you responded:
The point is that the German advantage in numbers of ‘high-tech tanks’ was very transitory, and the stocks were a lot smaller than you seemed to think. I’ve shown (possibly after you wrote this response) that it was basically gone within 6 months, and overwhelmingly gone within 18. And yet the Germans battled on for quite some time.
But I thought we cared about average tech, not peak tech, and the average German division was horse-drawn.
So? I doubt that persisted past mid-1942.
But they should have gotten out equally fast if the average tech level of their tanks was better than the Germans. Because small chronological differences produce big results in terms of combat power. They didn’t.
I’m aware of that. But Stalingrad didn’t start until August, by which point the Soviets had an overwhelming advantage in terms of modern tanks.
It does fit well. What does not fit well are the German successes the next summer and fall, when the gap was probably even greater. The German high-water makr on the Eastern Front was November of 1942, not December of 1941. You have to account for all the data, not just point to the bits that support your theory.
I’m aware of that. You claimed that Hurricanes were being shot down in large numbers until an upgrade came along. That implies some change in relative loss rates, which we don’t really see. (I’m aware of the different roles. Attacking bombers isn’t as easy as it sounds, particularly with fighter escort.)
@ bean
You say the German tank tech lead was transitory, and I agree, but your numbers give a false illusion of how short that period was. Russia did not achieve parity the day that they had produced as many new tanks as Germany did, at the onset of Barbarossa German tanks will killing Russian tanks/planes/artillery at rates of 5-1 or 10-1 to their own losses. If 500 T34s rolled off the line in July and August (a high estimate) of 1941 and were sent to the front lines they were not joining up with the 2,000 other new tanks that had been produced in 1940/41, they were joining up with the 1,000 tanks that had survived the first 2-3 months of the invasion. Eventually the Soviets would achieve parity (though it took longer still for them to match in terms of tanks crewed with experienced/competent soldiers), but it was not in the early stages of the invasion as you would think if you took tank production to mean tanks on the front line.
As for the average tech vs top tech quip, it is obvious that what matters is the divisions that are engaging. German mechanized divisions and air force crushed Soviet mechanized divisions, where as German infantry suffered heavier casualties when engaged against Soviet infantry (though not as much as the Soviet casualties, the gap was much smaller than in the mechanized field prior to Stalingrad).
@baconbacon:
When comparing German armoured/mechanized vs Soviet equivalent performance to German infantry vs Soviet equivalent, are they really comparable? I imagine that the spearhead of the German forces received more air and artillery support and priority for resupply, etc.
And by the end of 1941 Russia had lost a huge percentage of its veteran infantry, its air force, support vehicles, communications, and basically every tank built prior to 1940 (which would have been still reasonably effective vs infantry). They had to train an entirely new officer corps, draw up new defensive lines, and produce enormous amounts of weapons, ammunition etc.
@baconbacon:
I’ll grant that it usually takes time for tanks to get to the front from the factory. But you either have to claim it takes something like a year (which is absurd and is contradicted by the Red Army’s winter counteroffensive) or you have to explain why the German Army did so well in the summer and fall of 1942.
I’m aware of that. But do those loss ratios apply to the modern tanks, or were they the result of modern German tanks going up against old Soviet tanks? (Which wasn’t really a thing, but I’ll pretend it was for now) And if they apply to modern tanks, why?
And you expect me to believe that the Germans didn’t use their infantry divisions at all? That’s absurd on several levels. For that matter, at the battle of Brody, the Soviets had a distinct edge in both total tanks and modern tanks, and still lost badly.
Sources?
Yes, they had. They then launched a successful counterattack. You brought that up as support for your theory. I pointed out that it didn’t explain the later bits of 1942. Pretending that they were in as bad of shape in August of 1942 as they were in August of 1941 is just silly. If you want me to believe that, you’d better provide sources.
Something that occurred to me.
bean posted earlier:
It goes beyond that, I realized. An example:
It’s not that hard to know what’s being taught in the best universities, outside of science stuff where there’s some trade secret that is either super esoteric or of special interest to the military or whatever.
And, there are lots of quality teachers and researchers out there, many of whom would be glad for a good job – there’s more people than jobs.
And yet, founding a new university is really hard, and the established institutions have a huge advantage. There’s all sorts of institutional reasons that someone with a vast amount of money can’t just sit down and build a new Harvard.
It is hideously unlikely that an alien civilisation will be a couple of decades away from is in tech progression. There would have to be a colossal coincidence.
More likely they got to where we are now 300 million years ago, or they will in 300 million years. Either way we are nowhere near an almost fair war.
There are former CIA employees who claim that they know from their past work that there are alien life forms on earth living in tunnels underneath the surface, and have been for a long time. Below here is a web site for one of these guys, and his list of articles on extra-terrestrials. There are various possibilities for why former CIA employees would believe in this. Just 2 examples out of many possibilities are:
1) Their jobs made them gullible. That is, in their jobs, they needed to believe what they were told in order to