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Night10194 posted:The StuG is not on your list and so it is incomplete. Many things aren't, but its silly to state that the Germans didn't do anything useful or innovative.
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Aug 28, 2016 01:24
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What was innovative about the Panther besides setting its own transmission on fire a lot and finally figuring out that maybe sloped armor would help? E: Not meant to be flippant, I legit don't know if there was something actually special about that tank. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 01:26
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Night10194 posted:What was innovative about the Panther besides setting its own transmission on fire a lot and finally figuring out that maybe sloped armor would help? It has positives and negatives. I know some people rag on the optics for the tank, but I've only seen that relatively recently (last few years, maybe?) and it did have mechanical problems with the transmission + engine, but it still had good mobility, a good gun, and decent armor. The gun wasn't great against infantry and fortifications thanks to the lack of a good HE round, and bad metal causing it to crack on hits was more a quality issue rather than the design itself. I find it really hard to believe that immediately post-war, the US would run tests on Panther tanks and conclude they were "the best medium tanks of the war" without some actual merit behind it. As for innovative, they were some of the first vehicles fitted with Night Vision sights, which is more of a nod to the IR sights, but mounting them on a tank was a big advantage at the time.  Source: Tank Data Volume 1 [Part of a 3 Volume set that takes data from the various Aberdeen Tests and compiles them together] Source on claim of "Best Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Aug 29, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 03:25
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I ask about Japan, we end up talking about Nazi tanks. This thread is amazing.
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Aug 28, 2016 03:29
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Jobbo_Fett posted:
[Citation Needed] The only non-German power that ever used the Panther (postwar France) immediately declared "these are poo poo, let's light the fire under our R&D teams so that we can get rid of them", and none of the major powers adopted any feature designed on it.
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Aug 28, 2016 03:35
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Jobbo_Fett posted:I find it really hard to believe that immediately post-war, the US would run tests on Panther tanks and conclude they were "the best medium tanks of the war" without some actual merit behind it. They didn't. The Panther had an exaggerated reputation even during WW2 due to a wide variety of factors, not the least of which was people grossly misreporting what they were attacking or being attacked by. Tigers were also really bad for this - any big German armored vehicle tended to morph into a Tiger in reports, and any smaller armored vehicle into a Panther. Best medium tank of the war is without a doubt your pick of the Sherman - particularly the Jumbo or Easy Eight variants - or the T-34, most notably the T-34-85 variant. And for heavy tanks, the Tiger and Tiger II were resoundingly mediocre, go with the IS-2 for a good contender.
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Aug 28, 2016 03:36
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Also germany was a top 2 nation in terms of steel quality and engine design. US planes really suffered until we got english engines. Japan and the US are really interesting because they went very different directions with lovely domestic engines. Japan stripped out all extra weight making their planes fast but vulnerable. US built giant engines and built a giant plane around it. The P47 really is a loving monster.
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Aug 28, 2016 03:49
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Cythereal posted:Best medium tank of the war is without a doubt your pick of the [...] or [b]the T-34[/b [...] Not at all, ever. Its not even a contender. The T-34-85 has a chance, but not the original model.
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Aug 28, 2016 03:57
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dtkozl posted:Also germany was a top 2 nation in terms of steel quality and engine design. US planes really suffered until we got english engines. It really is 
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Aug 28, 2016 04:06
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Grumio posted:It really is I'm curious as to why the Speed at altitude is always different vs compared aircraft.
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Aug 28, 2016 04:07
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Jobbo_Fett posted:I'm curious as to why the Speed at altitude is always different vs compared aircraft. Because the air gets thinner and engines less efficient the higher you go up, leading different planes to have different operational ceilings.
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Aug 28, 2016 04:11
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Jobbo_Fett posted:I'm curious as to why the Speed at altitude is always different vs compared aircraft. Prob just ripping it from official reports that all used different altitudes in their tests.
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Aug 28, 2016 04:12
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Also, if you ever have a spare afternoon and fifty men, you can assemble your own P-47: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2D3k0sJ8HM
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Aug 28, 2016 04:14
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dtkozl posted:Also germany was a top 2 nation in terms of steel quality and engine design. US planes really suffered until we got english engines. The Allison V-1710 is a superior engine to the Merlin in a lot of ways, particularly in ease of manufacture, excepting that the single-speed, single-stage supercharger gives it a relatively low critical altitude. Development of turbochargers was progressing rapidly (the P-38 used turbocharged V-1710s to great effect, and shows what the engine is really capable of,) so a two-speed, two-stage supercharger like what was used in late Merlin models was never developed for the 1710. (Allison eventually produced one, and it was used in the XP-51J, but never in a production aircraft.) It's also worth noting that even the post-war versions of the V-1710 used in the F-82, while having a two-speed, two-stage supercharger like a Merlin, still lacked an intercooler, relying entirely on ADI (anti-detonation water-injection) to operate at high-boost power settings. Conversely, US radial engines were and are the best in the world. The R-2800 and R-3350 were unequalled for their time, and had the war gone on even a single additional year, the gap would have widened even more as R-4360 powered aircraft began to show up in numbers. (We need a Pratt and Whitney eagle with a tear running down its cheek in front of an American flag.)
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Aug 28, 2016 04:18
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Cythereal posted:Because the air gets thinner and engines less efficient the higher you go up, leading different planes to have different operational ceilings. Yeah, but this isn't about operational ceilings, these are just numbers pulled in what looks like a semi-random fashion. The Bf-109G-6's max speed is rated at 640km/h | 398mph at 20,600 feet, yet it somehow gains an extra 30-40mph at an altitude 2,000 feet higher? And its operational ceiling is 39,300 feet.
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Aug 28, 2016 04:20
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dtkozl posted:Also germany was a top 2 nation in terms of steel quality and engine design. US planes really suffered until we got english engines. This design philosiphy would continue with the F-4 Phantom line of aircraft.
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Aug 28, 2016 04:21
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Not at all, ever. Its not even a contender. The T-34-85 has a chance, but not the original model. I mean if you're going to edit the post you quoted to that extent... Jobbo_Fett posted:radios in every [...] Panzerfaust I'm no expert but I didn't think the Nazis put radios in those? (also the original T-34 was really good, it does not make sense to say something from 1940 was bad because the 1943 model was better)
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Aug 28, 2016 04:26
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James Garfield posted:(also the original T-34 was really good, it does not make sense to say something from 1940 was bad because the 1943 model was better) 
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Aug 28, 2016 04:30
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On my list of "best battleship of all time" the Bismarck does not rank above the Dreadnought even though it would probably have won a fight. I don't know about you.
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Aug 28, 2016 04:40
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MrYenko posted:Were Japanese carriers attacked by heavy bombers other than at Midway? It's the only example I can think of. Light bombers, technically, but RAF Blenheims attacked the KB during the Indian Ocean Raid (this didn't work, although they did actually manage to drop their bombs, which doesn't reflect brilliantly on the IJN, I guess).
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Aug 28, 2016 04:47
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goatface posted:P-43 Lancers. That's scraping the barrel a bit. I will fight you. But seriously the baby-bolts were very good when they were developed, and even by this point could play merry hell with Zeroes at altitude. Including being able to outclimb and outrun A6M2 Zeroes at the same time above ~12,000 feet. The P-43/P-47 series have always been my choice for best planes of the war.
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Aug 28, 2016 04:54
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MrYenko posted:The Allison V-1710 is a superior engine to the Merlin in a lot of ways, particularly in ease of manufacture, excepting that the single-speed, single-stage supercharger gives it a relatively low critical altitude. Development of turbochargers was progressing rapidly (the P-38 used turbocharged V-1710s to great effect, and shows what the engine is really capable of,) so a two-speed, two-stage supercharger like what was used in late Merlin models was never developed for the 1710. (Allison eventually produced one, and it was used in the XP-51J, but never in a production aircraft.) How much of that though was after we got all that juicy R&D from the brits when we joined the war? The engine was a real dog in 1941/2, which is when things really mattered.
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Aug 28, 2016 05:59
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wrong thread
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Aug 28, 2016 06:50
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To answer the question "why did the Japanese do so well in the initial stages despite their primitive... everything", I'll outline a couple of bullet points, more on this can be read in the Handbook on Japanese Military Forces from 1944, available online. - The jungles and mountains of the Pacific theatre were perfectly suited for the Japanese land doctrine and tactics, among other things because... - Each component of their army was drilled to operate as autonomously as possible, going from an infantryman all the way up to regimental command. Each soldier was expected to take care of all his business, without any support personnel to speak of. Officers were trained to always take initiative based on simple rules of thumb without bothering to check with their superiors. (Infantry was not issued radios, for the most part. The most sophisticated form of communication for the typical officer was a messenger) They were always instructed to choose offense over defense. Divisional commanders only sporadically intervened in the matters of their junior officers, and would typically only issue broad guidelines for the improvising troops. This was crucial in the opening stages of the war when the Japanese weren't bogged down by poor communications, unwieldy equipment, bureaucracy etc., and were able to keep moving forwards as fast as their feet carried them, regardless of the harsh environment in which they found themselves. -The IJA had developed possibly the most sophisticated infiltration tactics of the early war. Their preference was for close quarters combat, and they were trained to seeks openings for infiltration of the enemy under all circumstances, without any exceptions. Troops were instructed in determining areas of combat where the enemy was seeking withdrawal, and attack through those zones into his rear, seeking an envelopment without a need for authorization. Even when in a marching formation and reformed into columns, a Japanese division would always be preceded by a fighting vanguard seeking to start combat even before the main body could be brought into action. The idea of not always attacking and trying to keep physical contact with enemy lines was only adopted by the staff after years of war experience, and never really proliferated down to the common front line officer. - Their artillery, while not too numerous and not too technologically advanced, was deployed in ways designed to support the infantryman's infiltration efforts. Artillery crews were expected to deploy as close to the enemy as possible, right behind the infantry, and focus almost exclusively on direct fire interdiction of enemy movement, to the detriment of other mission types, while constantly leapfrogging to keep pace with the advance. As a result in the early stages of war they were able to achieve better results in infantry - artillery synergy than their enemies. - As technology and material situation of the Allies improved, all these factors that initially helped Japan turned into disadvantages. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 10:06
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professor_curly posted:But seriously the baby-bolts were very good when they were developed, and even by this point could play merry hell with Zeroes at altitude. Including being able to outclimb and outrun A6M2 Zeroes at the same time above ~12,000 feet. They weren't exactly common outside of China, not very common in China, and a US plane without self sealing fuel tanks is just weird. I'm not sure how they ended up where we're seeing them without an order sending every single plane they have available to that airbase..
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Aug 28, 2016 14:11
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The best plane of the war is clearly the Macchi C.205
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Aug 28, 2016 14:38
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ArbitraryTA posted:The best plane of the war is clearly the Macchi C.205  Oh, Fascist Italy, the incompetent comic relief villain of WWII.
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Aug 28, 2016 14:51
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i enjoy how WW2 wargame designers find new and fun ways to make Italy poo poo. didn't WitE cap them at 50 morale or something? how do other games deal with them?
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Aug 28, 2016 14:56
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Tiler Kiwi posted:i enjoy how WW2 wargame designers find new and fun ways to make Italy poo poo. Combat Mission Fortress Italy has them in tanks that can be penetrated by a machine gun.
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Aug 28, 2016 14:58
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LordPants posted:Combat Mission Fortress Italy has them in tanks that can be penetrated by a machine gun. Battlefield 1942 had an Italian front expansion, and IIRC the only weird thing was the game's really weird choice of guns for the Italians. Codename Panzers had Italians in the German campaign (both games' German campaigns started in North Africa IIRC) where they were universally cheaper than proper German units but weaker as well.
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Aug 28, 2016 15:00
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A heavy machine gun, or any unit with a light squad support?
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Aug 28, 2016 15:00
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goatface posted:A heavy machine gun, or any unit with a light squad support? Yeah it has to be a 50 cal machine gun, but still. That's pretty funny in my opinion. Also they're technically not tanks but Tankettes. 
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Aug 28, 2016 15:39
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Since we're discussing the merits of WW2 reputations, did the Italians do anything right? Besides having the prettiest planes
tunapirate fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 17:27
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Their navy wasn't that badly designed except the part where one admiral was like "Bah, radar and electronics? Those are just stupid newfangled distractions to our iron will." and also the bit where their transport capacity all got interned at the beginning of the war so they never had any fuel or supplies.
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Aug 28, 2016 17:37
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tunapirate posted:Since we're discussing the merits of WW2 reputations, did the Italians do anything right? Besides having the prettiest planes The Italian units that fought on The Eastern Front had a good reputation.
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Aug 28, 2016 17:51
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tunapirate posted:Since we're discussing the merits of WW2 reputations, did the Italians do anything right? Besides having the prettiest planes SM.79, the Beretta pistols had a good reputation afaik, manned torpedos, the Piaggio P.108, wearing a feather in their cap
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Aug 28, 2016 17:53
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^^ The commando torpedoes with limpet mines are cool as hell. Another victim of economies of scale. goatface fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 17:55
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Hey now! We did pretty well in Greece until the Greeks kicked our asses and Hitler had to bail us out! Also we did really good in East Africa and North Africa until the British kicked our asses! And remember how fiercely we beat back the landings in Sicily until the British and Americans kicked our asses?
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Aug 28, 2016 18:01
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pasta_water_allotment_desert.xls
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Aug 28, 2016 18:03
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tunapirate posted:Since we're discussing the merits of WW2 reputations, did the Italians do anything right? Besides having the prettiest planes Switching sides when they saw which way the wind was blowing.
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Aug 28, 2016 18:06
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