I was watching a show the other day on one of the history channels (sorry, can’t remember what it was called) and the narrator was talking about German tank production. He said something along the lines of this: If Germany had focused their tank production on the more produce-able Panzer IV designs (upgunning and upgrading the armor) than spend it’s limited production on things like Tiger/Panther development and production then (to paraphrase), ‘it would have changed the war’.
Thinking about it, I suppose a case could be made for that. One of the things the US and the Soviets did to Germany was to basically swamp them with masses of tanks that could be produced (and lost) in huge quantities with ridiculous exchange rates (5 ,6 or even 10 to 1 was considered acceptable exchange rates). But what if Germany had standardized on it’s Panzer IV design instead (as a point of comparison, even building all the other stuff Germany did, they still managed to build nearly 10k Panzer IV’s…while they built basically 5-6k Panthers and 1500 Tiger I’s…and maybe 300-400 Tiger II King Tigers)?
Would it have made any difference at all, or been basically moot? I’m leaning towards moot…building an additional 10-20k or so Panzer IV’s, even upgunning and up-armoring them wouldn’t have made that much of a difference in the final outcome in the end. The US produced over 60k Sherman tanks along, and IIRC, the Soviets made over 40-50k T-34 tanks. While neither was as good as it’s German counter part, they were good enough in the kind of quantities they were produced at, and Germany would simply have been trading 15/20 to 1 odds for maybe 10 to 1 at best. Still a losing hand for them no matter how you slice it.
It might have made a few specific battles a little different, but in the end it wouldn’t have saved them. Allied production capabilities would still overwhelm them.
Yeah, that’s how I see it. I’m thinking Kursk in particular might have been different without Hitler delaying the battle so the Panzer Vs (Panthers) could be used (with all of the issues and problems they had). Might have been a different outcome if the German’s had thrown in a lot more Panzer IVs without giving the Soviets as much time to build up defenses.
But, overall, I’m thinking the outcome would have ended up being the same. Germany would still be overwhelmed in the end by the sheer production of allied tanks.
Agreed, T34, Sherman and Panzer IV are broadly similar tanks. Only the Panzer is still outnumbered x to one. Where x is too damn high for the Germans to overcome.
Germany could have started mass producing Abrams tanks in 1943 and they still would have lost the war. Maybe it would have taken another year but I doubt it. We would have found a solution within 6 months.
I think the fallacy is that they’re assuming that by not producing 7800 Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II tanks, that this would translate into more than 7800 Panzer IV tanks being produced, and that the combat power of those extra tanks would outweigh the performance of the 7800 more advanced tanks that were produced.
I’m not sure that was the case; I suspect it may have been more beneficial to have stopped Panzer IV production altogether in 1943 and swapped those resources toward producing Panther tanks, since they were the overall most effective and versatile tank the Germans fielded.
The biggest problem the Germans had is that they produced multiple vehicles at the same time- Panzer III, Panzer 4, Panther and Tiger all at the same time, as well as converting older Czech tanks to assault guns.
Had they standardized somewhere along the line, they could have distributed their manufacturing such that Allied bombing couldn’t hit choke-points, like they did in April 1944, and put the Maybach engine plant in Friedrichshafen out of commission for 5 months, delaying Panther AND Tiger production. Had they standardized on one or two engine designs, they could have had multiple factories producing them, and any one raid wouldn’t have caused undue problems.
No, I’m pretty sure that if Germany COULD have produced Abrams tanks it would have been a game changer in 1943. Assuming they could also produce and logistically support them in the field.
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I think the fallacy is that they’re assuming that by not producing 7800 Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II tanks, that this would translate into more than 7800 Panzer IV tanks being produced, and that the combat power of those extra tanks would outweigh the performance of the 7800 more advanced tanks that were produced.
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I’m pretty sure the Panzer IV’s were easier to produce in quantity, and the performance envelop for them was not that far out from the Panther (Panzer V), especially when it was up-armored and up-gunned with the same gun they put on the Panther. So, I suppose the thought there is that having a lot more tanks (maybe double or triple what was actually produced) but were slightly less capable than the Panther would have helped them out. Also, if they standardized on the Panzer IV they could have, in theory, also built more Stug (Sturmgeschütz IV) panzer hunters…something they did actually build in numbers and were pretty effective but could have been built in even more numbers (I suppose the thinking is) if Germany had standardized on the Panzer IV and not tried to develop more sophisticated (and more complex and difficult to manufacture) tanks. Perhaps they could have had the Panthers as the next series, since tank development would need to continue as both sides tried to develop new variants and new models (the T-34 to T-34/85 and IS2, the Sherman to…well, the Sherman with a bit more armor and slightly larger gun, or Sherman Firefly that the Brits had, the M-26 Pershing and the British Centurion, arguably the best tank of WWII that didn’t fight in the war :p).
Probably would have made little to no difference. German production was already messed up with a huge variety of PZIV’s that needed supply and parts. Plus they almost never had enough fuel to operate and run them.
Trying to get by without a Heavy Tank on the Western front might have worked but the Russian front it would have had some bad things.
One thing that probably would not have changed the war but would have caused a lot more casualties would have been to put more effort into anti-tank measures which caused the vast a majority of tank kills.
The issue is reflective of the much broader problem: the Nazis had no idea how to run a modern industrial economy. The only thing they “knew” was that they should try to run things because as superior Aryans they would do a better job. The result is they put themselves into places they should have stayed out of and made things worse. You had people like Hitler, Himmler, Goering, and Todt making major decisions on subjects they had no knowledge of. And because of the way the Nazi system was set up, their bad decisions couldn’t be argued against.
Had Gen. McNair not been so dogmatic about the tank destroyer doctrine, the US could probably have fielded the M26 Pershing tanks (or something very like them) quite a bit earlier than they did. There wasn’t any big technological advancement involved in them, just building a tank big enough to carry a 90mm gun and a good amount of armor.
Germany lost WWII when they overextended their reach with Operation Barbarossa in opening the Eastern front and attacking the Soviet Union. Although war with Russia would have been inevitable in any case, Germany needed to beat Western Europe and Great Britain into suing for peace to secure the necessary resources in order to support a sustained push into Eastern Europe. No tanks or other non-magical technology would have made up for this error.
The few we deployed did pretty well, knocking out several Tiger I and Panther tanks, though they had issues, IIRC, with their transmission. But I agree…the US could have had these (or Sherman tanks with larger guns and more armor) much earlier if the perception that what we had was good enough hadn’t permeated the upper echelons and procurement of the Army.
…Then Berlin gets Nuked. Which of of course is the fatal problem, with pretty much any “If Hitler had done X, the war would have gone on for another Y months scenario”.
I’ve said before that Germany was fighting three different wars at the same time - the bombing war, the land war in the East, and the land war in the West - and losing all three of them. So there wasn’t any minor change that would have led to a German victory. Most what-ifs just lead to a different German defeat.
The only caveat I do have about the whole Berlin being nuked thing is how hard it would actually have been to achieve?
German air defences were shattered but they weren’t gone. It’s hard to see a lone/tiny flight of planes heading to Berlin not getting jumped by the Luftwaffe. Slipping it into a normal massive air attack seems a recipe for accidentally knocking down half your own squadrons.
For a game changer that would have affected the course of the war, at least to the point of getting everyone to agree to a cease fire, the germans would have had to mimic the american army airforce and get some wings of heavy bombers into ciruclation.
No way that they could have reached the States, and bombing England was a waste of time, but they could very well have set the Russians back quite a ways.
Assuming they could also produce and logistically support them in the field.