Tiger Kills and Losses

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VeenenbergR
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by VeenenbergR »

mkenny wrote:
You only have to look at the millions of German POW's taken before the surrender to realise your claim is rubbish.
Yes there were millions taken prisoner before the surrender by the Soviets: 2 million to be specific by the Soviets and 1,2 million handed over to them by the Western Allies.
But mkenny: one more million were encircled and did NOT surrender but fought until the death (Stalingrad, Korsun, Sevastopol, Brody, Kishinev, Minsk, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Vilnius, Warsaw, Budapest, Belgrado, Memel, Königsberg, Pillau, Heiligenbeil, Thorn, Kolberg, Posen, Breslau, Halbe, Berlin).
The British never had a terrible experience like "Brody" or "Korsun", let not speak about real disasters like "Minsk" and "Kishinev".

And of the 3,2 million that did surrender half of them did not come back from hell.
So the surrendering and surviving form less than 50% of those which in all aspect (like POW's from Britain or the USA) could have lived.......
Now these mass slaughters were not experienced in the armies of the victorous Western Allies. For them war was no holliday but certianly not hell.
That makes the German case very different and special.
If you can not grasp what I mean you are talking nonsense and don't try disdain me constantly. 2.000.000 MIA is not "rubbish" but tragic to the the extreme.
I would hear you if say 20.000 British soldiers (1% of the German number) were missing........

Robert
Byron Angel

Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by Byron Angel »

Veenenberg,

..... not wishing to take away from the death and suffering experienced by Germans on the Eastern Front, the British Army has suffered a few similar types of defeats, just not in WW2 -

Siege of Kut in WW1.

The destruction of the British Kabul expedition in Afghanistan during the late 19th century Colonial period.


Byron
mkenny
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by mkenny »

VeenenbergR wrote:Yes there were millions taken prisoner before the surrender by the Soviets: 2 million to be specific by the Soviets and 1,2 million handed over to them by the Western Allies.

When hostilities ceased, 4,005,732 prisoners of war had been captured in The West. Additional prisoners continued to be reported after V-E E Day, and revised statistics show that the total number captured was 6,155,468. Of this total 2,657,138 were prisoners of war and 4,098,330 were disarmed enemy forces.


VeenenbergR wrote:one more million were encircled and did NOT surrender but fought until the death (Stalingrad, Korsun, Sevastopol, Brody, Kishinev,
Minsk, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Vilnius, Warsaw, Budapest, Belgrado, Memel, Königsberg, Pillau, Heiligenbeil, Thorn, Kolberg, Posen, Breslau, Halbe, Berlin).
Stalingrad surrendered, so did Berlin and all the others in between. As you can see some 6 million did not fight to the death.
This 'fight-to-the-death claim is often made but it is total fiction. Millions of German soldiers surrendered.
Look how Kurt Meyer was found hiding in a pig sty and surrendered to the civilain police. He decided he wanted to live just like all the others.
VeenenbergR wrote:And of the 3,2 million that did surrender half of them did not come back from hell.
The mortality rate for German POW's in Russia was 35% (3.155.000/1.094.000)
The mortality rate for Russian POW's in Germany was 57% ( 5.7 million/ 3.3 million )
All things being equal it was much much worse to be a POW in German hands than the other way around.
If you are saying the Soviets were guilty of 'mass slaughters " then what do you call the even bigger German murder rate?
Note that the German mortality rate (35%) is the highest total. There are other German sources who put it at 11%
VeenenbergR wrote:That makes the German case very different and special.
Do you not think the mass killings of Soviet civilians (around 10 million) had anything to do with the Soviet desire for revenge?
Do you not think the Germans brought it upon themselves?
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minoru genda
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by minoru genda »

Bgile wrote:Thanks for the info. What I was really hoping for was what kind of damage could be caused by a fighter attack with MG or cannon and how that would disable the tank.

I can sure see how a fighter could make the lives of accompanying infantry unbearable and thereby cause an attack to fail, but I still don't have a good picture of what kind of damage would be done to a tank. I served in M-60 tanks, and I just find it hard to imagine how such weapons would destroy one of them outright.
Bgile, Have you seen "Saving Private Ryan" ? At the end the German Tiger is destroyed by a P-51.
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Bgile
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by Bgile »

minoru genda wrote:
Bgile wrote:Thanks for the info. What I was really hoping for was what kind of damage could be caused by a fighter attack with MG or cannon and how that would disable the tank.

I can sure see how a fighter could make the lives of accompanying infantry unbearable and thereby cause an attack to fail, but I still don't have a good picture of what kind of damage would be done to a tank. I served in M-60 tanks, and I just find it hard to imagine how such weapons would destroy one of them outright.
Bgile, Have you seen "Saving Private Ryan" ? At the end the German Tiger is destroyed by a P-51.
Yes, good movie but I think that was kind of silly.
VeenenbergR
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by VeenenbergR »

mkenny wrote:
The mortality rate for German POW's in Russia was 35% (3.155.000/1.094.000)
I am deeply interested in this source, because THE authority on German casuality statistics is Overmars and he states that
probably at least 1.475.000 German soldiers died in Soviet custody (the Soviet official death numbers of German POWS about 475.000 added with 50% of the MIA 2.050.000).
Here is simply even by the authority Overmars no proof but has also not offered until yet a sound analysis of the fate of the 2.000.000 MIA.
Note that only David Glantz offers acceptable explanations of German casualties in the operations in the East, but until now there is no total integral analysis of all casualties in all operations i the East which fit with the total accepted statistics of Overmars.

If your statistics are true: 1.094.000 German POW's died in Soviet custody (most by the harsh conditions) then a "gap" of those other 400.000 missing must be explained.
But is a soldier which is killed on the spot (which happened many times) after he surrenders counted as POW?

Explanation 1.
If these 400.000 however are the ones I frequently call "the encircled which fought to the death" in those terrible pocket battles than is the German death toll in operations like Bagration simply greater than the official statistics implicate.

Explanation 2.
Note that these 400.000 are in addition to those which had to fight to the death (f.e. the German garrison of Budapest fought to the death: only a few hundred escaped and those which surrendered were all wounded or heavy wounded, few survived). And there were more of those Budapest (40.000) situations like Kishinev (200.000) Brody (40.000) or Halbe (100.000) with very high finally death casualty ratings.

Yoy are complete right to state that the Soviet casualty rates (also of the POW''s) are even higher than those of the Germans.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Bgile:
I think Russian soldiers were mostly uneducated peasants and had no knowledge of Stalin's depredations. They were highly patriotic. I really don't think political theories affected them much. For much of the war they were defending their homeland against a brutal invasion.
That`s right. Ideology was not that important to them as Motherland was. Stalin even used religion in order to grasp the population fervor to the defense of Russia. Of course Stalin`s interests were not of "liberating" his people and taking them away from totalitarism but just to save his skin and that of the vermin in charge of his country. Millions paid for this defense and many of those that survived only got rewarded by a slow freezing death in Siberia.

Best regards,
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Byron:
I don't think it is any coincidence that the USSR's struggle against Germany was billed and marketed as "The Great Patriotic War".
It is obvious that the soviets will try to gain distance from the common "allied" denominator: World War. In a World War the USSR will be one of many players; in a "Patriotic War" it is Ruskies vs. Germans, just put. Also, during the wartime days, it will reinforce the fervor and love to the Motherland of the population. At the end, up to these days, it will separate in an ideologic way WWII in two: a struggle amongst conservative nations to that of fascism vs. socialism.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
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JamesGDB
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by JamesGDB »

If your talking about POW's here I think we can simplify by this. If you were a German POW in Russian... it was going to be Bad.. Even the Hungarians, and Romanina German sympathizers were treated very poorly. I spoke with a Hungarian POW, and he said the first thing the Russians took was their Spork, their Mess kit, and any first aid equipment. They also lacked suspenders. While imprisoned he was lucky because he was from a Pioneer Battalion (Engineer) and was good at fixing things, he made friends with a caputred French Lt.. fighting for the Heer? (Was A French Officer who enlisted in the Heer). Anyways they became friends and he only served 7 long years in the URALS somewhere. He said that if the train was ever late.. the Train conductor got 5 years hard labor. He remembers this vividly when he was repairing something near the Train Station and a train was 2min late. The NKVD officers took away the Train Conductor yelling and beating him until they disapeared. He also remembers Men just dying, from starvation, disease etc. Some were shot right as they disembarked from the train, Lined up and shot. Women who served the Germans were in different Box Cars, when they disembarked, they were raped repeatedly, some killed some kept... some commited suicide when they could.

If you were a Russian POW in German hands... well that was pretty brutal.. Lack of food logistics, and of course the Extermination. The same stories Im sure can be told by both sides. Two completely different ideologies... bent on Domination and destruction of the other.

The Germans for the most part took care of Western and Italian POW's much better. Games of soccer, Christmas singing together...etc. Sure there were incidents from both sides... but the ones you honestly only here about are those commited by either the Germans or Japanese.

I think people need to be more educated when it comes to people like Stalin, who killed roughly 12million before 1940 and antother 14million by 1948. Wether they were Russian, German, Hungarian, whoever it should be more documented. What about Mao.... you know the guy the Allies supported during WWII... he Killed over 30Million people.... but NO ONE... seems to remeber this? Or even read about it, talk about it in their world history clasess. It was the EVIL GERMANS AND JAPANESE... Well who made Germany what it was in WWII??? The ALLIED Victors of WWI. They destroyed Germany so bad, that the People had to look outside the box for a new Leader.... And in the begining he brought them food, jobs and a sort of confidence that was Germany of old... Wanting their land back that was taken from them, Their Navy back which was lost to them.. surrendered during WWI, their Pride back, and a sense of European Power that was always enjoyed since when the Germanic tribes stopped the Romans from conquering them entirely.

Just saying their are reasons for the way people think... Victors get the priveledge of re-writing history the way they see it.. even though sometimes its not entirely the truth.
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by madmike »

to mkenny, How do you think ANY allied tank could go toe to toe with a tiger I, let alone a tiger II, What chance would you give a M-4 or even the firefly,how about the JS-1 or the T-34/85 or any other allied WWII tank/tank-hunters, say up against a tigers 88mm gun inside 2500m range,face to face, i think the JS-1 would probably have the best chance, and i would'nt bet money on that either, a M-4 has little or no chance at all, the firefly has a weapon that can do the job on a tiger, but not the armour to protect itself, same armour as the M-4.
as to the claims of kill numbers per tank crew, i really dont think we will ever know the truth. claimed kills will always be much higher than the REAL number, such is the nature of such things, how many planes were claimed shot down by pilots and AAA gun crews on both sides,(air/land/sea). I would think if you added all the claims together from all sides it would probably come to a total number greater than the number of aircraft built during the whole war, and that was probably the same for claimed tank kills from all sides. some US tank-hunter kills were proven later to have been achieved by air attack Not by the tank-hunters at all, that sort of thing happened on both sides.
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by lwd »

madmike wrote:to mkenny, How do you think ANY allied tank could go toe to toe with a tiger I, let alone a tiger II, What chance would you give a M-4 or even the firefly,how about the JS-1 or the T-34/85 or any other allied WWII tank/tank-hunters, say up against a tigers 88mm gun inside 2500m range,face to face,
There were cases of M-4's doing so and prevailing. The 17lber and 90mm guns had pretty good AP stats and the 105 HEAT round wasn't bad either.
... the firefly has a weapon that can do the job on a tiger, but not the armour to protect itself,
Get insided the range where most of the fighting took place and the Tiger doesn't either.
as to the claims of kill numbers per tank crew, i really dont think we will ever know the truth. claimed kills will always be much higher than the REAL number, such is the nature of such things, how many planes were claimed shot down by pilots and AAA gun crews on both sides,(air/land/sea). I would think if you added all the claims together from all sides it would probably come to a total number greater than the number of aircraft built during the whole war, and that was probably the same for claimed tank kills from all sides.
In some cases but in others one can look at the actual records of losses from one side and compare them with the claims of the other.
some US tank-hunter kills were proven later to have been achieved by air attack Not by the tank-hunters at all, ...
The opposite was apparently more common.
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by madmike »

lwd, i never said M-4s didnt kill tigers, just that face to face the standard M-4 had little chance, The fitting of the British 17 lb er ATG in to the sherman(firefly) was to give the allies a reliable weapon against panther and tiger tanks, MOST western allies tank guns at that time, June 44, didnt have the ability to kill panther or tigers tanks with reliability, the 90mm guns were not fitted till sometime AFTER the 17 lb ers, and yes the 90mm were a good weapon as well, and the 105 HEAT was a good tiger(any tank) killing round , and lwd GETTING in to range were most allied tank guns could kill a panther/tiger was the hardest part, I think if you look at the stats on tank guns on both sides, the German 75mm(mounted on the panther) and the 88mm on the tiger both have VERY good range and AP abilities, and out class most of the allied tank guns at the time. JUNE 44.

my comment on the kill claims from both sides,(some US tank-hunter kills were proven later to have been achieved by air attack Not by the tank-hunters at all, ...) was just to point out how such high kill claims could happen, IT WAS MOST CERTAINLY NOT SAID TO BE-LITTLE THE COURAGE OR SKILL OF THOSE BRAVE MEN. and if that is the way it came across, then i deeply apologize.
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by alecsandros »

lwd wrote:
... the firefly has a weapon that can do the job on a tiger, but not the armour to protect itself,
Get insided the range where most of the fighting took place and the Tiger doesn't either.
Hello,
The quality of the armor used on Tigers was better than most contemporary builds.
After capturing their first Tiger in 1942, the Brits examined it thoroughly and found the armor to be 10-15% more resistant to penetration from AP shots than contemporary plates of the same thickenss used in Churchill designs.

Fact is that the Tiger was a most ferocious beast on the battlefield. IF it could get to the battlefield. The numerous breakdowns and, from 1943 onwards, the numerous air attacks against German resuply columns, limited the number of Tigers available on the battlefield at any given time...
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by lwd »

madmike wrote:lwd, i never said M-4s didnt kill tigers, just that face to face the standard M-4 had little chance
And my point is that they had a better chance than one might think just looking at the stats. Certainly on an open field one on one starting up couple kyards apart the Tiger has the advantage.
... MOST western allies tank guns at that time, June 44, didnt have the ability to kill panther or tigers tanks with reliability,
From the front at longer ranges.
... , and lwd GETTING in to range were most allied tank guns could kill a panther/tiger was the hardest part,
If you look at the average engagement ranges in Western Europe I'm not sure that's the case.
I think if you look at the stats on tank guns on both sides, the German 75mm(mounted on the panther) and the 88mm on the tiger both have VERY good range and AP abilities, and out class most of the allied tank guns at the time. JUNE 44.
Indeed. On the other hand the gun on the 75mm gun on the Sherman was actually better against the most numerous threats it faced at least when compared to the Pather's 75mm gun. The Tiger's was better all around though.
my comment on the kill claims from both sides,(some US tank-hunter kills were proven later to have been achieved by air attack Not by the tank-hunters at all, ...) was just to point out how such high kill claims could happen,
And I was pointing out that that particular mechanism was rare. Furthermore I'm not aware or extrodinary claims by US tank-hunters. It's easy to understand how that could occur but it's less common if you win engagements as the enemy vehicles kileed can be counted and examined.
IT WAS MOST CERTAINLY NOT SAID TO BE-LITTLE THE COURAGE OR SKILL OF THOSE BRAVE MEN. and if that is the way it came across, then i deeply apologize.
I didn't take it so. If I implied I did I also am sorry.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Tiger Kills and Losses

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

lwd:
There were cases of M-4's doing so and prevailing.
However those are the exemptions. If you follow up any website dedicated to WWII tank warfare you can see how evident the kill ratio goes in favor of German Tiger tanks.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
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