Ulater's Archive

New myths to replace the old "You have horses! What were you thinking!" - Is a now famous line from band of Brothers series, which came to symbolise the German army's lack of motorised transportation, or what  looked like a lack of motorised transportation from the point of view of a simple US infantryman observing a collumn of german prisoners of war marching into captivity. If we forget that we are talking about a TV series and the context, that observation was not completely wrong. Other people, taking a more "serious"(and yet more simplistic) approach, just looked at the number of Panzer and Motorised divisions in relation to infantry divisions at any given time in german army, and they came to the conclusion that Wehrmacht was roughly 80% horse-drawn, which is mostly based on conjecture and out-dated information.[1] Even if one would accept that german infantry divisions were mostly horse-drawn, due to the number of horses compared to vehicles, it stil

   Reports goes into detail about the knocked-out Panthers, caliber of guns that hit them and whether they burned. The list is as follows: 1. Turret no. 312 , tank broke down and was later blown up by retreating germans. 2. Turret no. 633 , rear armor penetrated by a single 76.2 mm shell, engine destroyed, tank burned. 3. Turret no. 613 . rear armor penetrated by a single 76.2 mm shell, engine destroyed, tank burned. 4. Turret no. 434 , sloped side armor penetrate by a single 76.2 mm shell, lower side armor penetrated by two 76.2 mm shells and turret rear penetrated by three 45 mm shells. 5. Turret no. 634 , turret side penetrated by three 45 mm shells, mantlet penetrated from the side by a single 76.2 mm shell, mantlet penetrated frontally by 45 mm APCR shell,  lower side armor penetrated by a single 76,2 mm shell and sloped side armor penetrated by a single 76.2 mm shell, ricochet off the glacis plate. 6. Turret no. 535,  two penetrations of the sloped side armor by 76,2 mm

First look    31 knocked-out Panther tanks were inspected, Based on the findings, the report "Combat against the german heavy tank Panther" was compiled. It is the first document of its kind that contains some very interesting statistics.    From 31 inspected Panthers, 22 were hit by gunfire, or 71%, 3 tanks, or 10% were destroyed by mines, one tank (3%) was hit directly by a bomb, one tank (3%) got stuck  in a trench and blown up and 4 tanks (13%) broke down and were subsequently either abandoned or blown-up. Gunfire losses    Out of 22 Panthers destroyed by gunfire: - None were penetrated through the frontal armor - 4 (18%) were hit and penetrated on the turret - 13 (59%) were hit  on the side of the hull - 5(23%)  were hit on the back of the hull    Out of 22 Panther tanks penetrated by gunfire, 10, or 45% burned. In the report, it is particularly noted that : " If a projectile penetrates the engine compartment, regardless of the poin

 - Collumns numbered 2, 3 and 4 are monthly averages of losses for given time periods, 5th is a month where highest average losses occured. collumns 6 and 7 are monthly losses according to preliminary reports. A.) Missing I. Heer (including field and reserve army, Waffen-SS and volunteer formations)  () - numbers in brackets are the number of officers included Total - 1,596,703 (25,743) a.) East - 999,746  (15,797) b.) Geb. AOK 20 - 6,856 (135) c.) AOK Norway u.W.B. Denmark - 236 (9) d.) Ob. South-west - 189,817 (4,574) e.) Ob. South-east - 13,838 (207) f.) Ob. West - 384,963 (5,005) g.) Reserve army -  1,247 (16) II. Kriegsmarine : Total - 34,395 (1,875)  - including: a.) Atlantic and other oceans - 20,098 (1,277) b.) East - 7,578 (281) c.) Mediterranean Sea - 6,719 (317) III. Luftwaffe: Total - 147,112 (7,159) - including: a.) West and Greater Reich area - 45,478 (2,281)  b.) South - 53,339 (2,170) c.) East - 48,284 (2,705)