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The British put a 17pdr gun on the Sherman, calling it the Firefly. It could knock out a Tiger, run rings around it before it could get off a shot in. In that time the Firefly had a fatal shot in.
Why the fascination? Because the German war machine conquered huge areas, all the while fighting on several fronts at once against many nations, inflicting a higher rate of casualties on their foes than they took themselves. They were superb warriors utterly wasted and used in a horrible cause.
There were 4 major parties to WW2; Germany, Japan, US and Russia. Of the 3, Germany commands the lion share of interest with regards to weapons, planes, rockets, ships, subs tanks etc. If you browse the news stands you see cover story after cover story about German hardware as well as military tactics. The US side gets some coverage as do the Russians but virtually nothing Japanese. Can't think of a single Japanese light arm that impressed anybody. It is not explicit but you sense a certain admiration for the German military from the leadership on down even when they end up on the losing side of battles. For example, WW2 memorabilia is predominantly German.
You should go check out scale modeling forums... the IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) has an absolutely rabid following. Japanese aircraft are also popular model subjects.
The fact of the matter is that most Japanese hardware DIDN'T impress; their infantry weapons were nothing special and ended their production runs with the war. The Germans on the other hand had some absolutely brilliant people inventing new and fascinating ways to kill people and those ideas were "borrowed" and improved on long after the war had ended.
The other thing is that WW2 hardware in this day in age is judged by aesthetics more than anything... something that would of baffled folks straight from the '40s.
Every major warring power has their own style when it comes to military hardware; most German stuff just plain looked cool, dangerous and sinister, and American arms had their own particular beauty.
Imperial Japanese aesthetics just don't have the same visual appeal for modern day Westerners; though today's Japanese folks would probably say something similar about theirs vis USA/Nazi/English WW2 military stuff.
So why the fascination for the German War Machine? Because it looks cool and bad-ass but is too remote in history to carry most of the psychological pain and horrors that it held for earlier generations.
You could build four Mk 4s to one Tiger. Germany was short of every raw material and skilled labor. Few of the Tiger's parts were interchangeable. Too slow a turret turn. It was too heavy and broke bridges. Over engineered. It needed a transporter. A waste.of time. US built 50, 000 Shermans. The Brits 5 million Sten guns, etc.
MK4s were obsolete well before the end of the war. Shot traps due to poor turret design. Lack of slope armor. 75mmKwk40 a poor weapon against soviet heavies.
MK4s were obsolete well before the end of the war. Shot traps due to poor turret design. Lack of slope armor. 75mm Kwk40 a poor weapon against soviet heavies.
The Mk4 was not obsolete. It was adequate for the task. It was superior to the Sherman for sure. A version with an 88mm gun was built to knock out heavy tanks. But they did not need it as anti-tank guns and self-propelled guns could do that. 1,300 Tigers equals over 5,000 MK4s and fully interchangeable parts with already trained maintenance crews.
The Mk4 was not obsolete. It was adequate for the task. It was superior to the Sherman for sure. A version with an 88mm gun was built to knock out heavy tanks. But they did not need it as anti-tank guns and self-propelled guns could do that. 1,300 Tigers equals over 5,000 MK4s and fully interchangeable parts with already trained maintenance crews.
Well you have your opinion and welcome to it but I use that of genuine armor experts. What MKIV came with the 88mm? Nashorn was an unarmored tracked vehicle.
Funny but you did not mention the availability of trained crews or whether a Tiger was equivalent to four MkIVs in performance.
You do know that on the Eastern Front there was wide usage by the soviets of towed AT guns which were considered quite dangerous by German tankers.(Aces tallies always include the AT guns as well as armor) A tank had to be able withstand frontal hits by the 76.2mm pieces to identify the firing emplacements prior to opening counterfire. You will not see any Panzer IVs doing this rather the heavy frontal armored units.
Corporativist, not state-controlled.
Russia was state controlled, Germany was a corporativist economy based on private companies forming a military complex (including some American companies, such as Ford, Curtiss, IBM, etc).
My error. Thanks for the correction. I thought industries were state directed after the Total War speech.
Have we forgotten the havoc and terror sown by the unterseeboots?
Have we forgotten how they became almost a nonfactor by the war's midpoint?
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German military planners had not expected war for several more years, and had not had time to build the modern surface fleet that they desired. Donitz had not gotten the u boats that he had pleaded for. At the start of war, he only had 57 boats, less than half of them modern long range blue water types. Even so, from 1939 to late 1942, when the Battle of the Atlantic began to turn in favor of the allies, the u boats racked up impressive numbers of kills, and came very close to isolating and sealing Great Britain's fate.
The Nazis kept their big ships hidden in Norwegian fjords for a great deal of the time. When they ventured out, they didn't stay afloat long since the Brits were laying for them.
germans had some of the best weapons, V2 rockets, the stg44 assault rifle, jet air craft, tiger tanks. The problem was they all came around too late and not enough manpower to pass produce and use them. If these weapons were able to be produced earlier on, they could have possibly changed the tide of war for them.
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