tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post3845585643255942105..comments2024-03-20T11:41:56.776-04:00Comments on Tank Archives: Cheating at Statistics: Coverup at KovyagiPeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09622237223229485503noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-29714367416292554092018-07-14T17:08:11.610-04:002018-07-14T17:08:11.610-04:00As years pass it's nice to see how we have gon...As years pass it's nice to see how we have gone from "all German documents are absolutely correct, Anglosaxon something in between and all Soviet is propaganda" to "all contenders overclaimed"<br />Well done Peter, part of merit is yours 👍Motzkorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18316989921665401048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-58643254387949393812018-07-14T01:06:52.868-04:002018-07-14T01:06:52.868-04:00High-profile elite units were likely to get sent t...High-profile elite units were likely to get sent to those anyway to try and stabilize the situation, though...Kellomieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04915110653443066212noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-43630788325098821362018-07-11T11:50:18.870-04:002018-07-11T11:50:18.870-04:00Yeah, now embellishing your successes, now that go...Yeah, now embellishing your successes, now that got your superiors pissed off at you pretty fast.Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09622237223229485503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-50780202929732115432018-07-11T08:01:56.219-04:002018-07-11T08:01:56.219-04:00Bear in mind Germany was losing the war. Being dem...Bear in mind Germany was losing the war. Being demoted and sent to a sector of the front soon to be overrun by the Russian's was almost the same as death. <br /> Sager ,William A.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06830369127449299646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-55553327880667747122018-07-11T06:22:21.575-04:002018-07-11T06:22:21.575-04:00>The worst that could happen to a British or Am...>The worst that could happen to a British or American commander for losing a battle is getting demoted.<br /><br /> It is also true for Soviets. You need to fuck up really hard to be more than demoted/reassigned in the Red Army. There was simply not enough trained officers to shoot them for stupid reasons.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10052873093033521178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-6270694448491038502018-07-11T04:05:48.789-04:002018-07-11T04:05:48.789-04:00Part of the problem for the Germans was the battle...Part of the problem for the Germans was the battle of France.<br /><br />Something we don't appreciate as much now is just how unexpected the victory was (in terms of losses and time) to the German high command, and how fundamentally it seemed to shake the conventional strategic calculus. It seemed to be proof that the German army was just better in every way than the raw numbers should allow it to be, and formed the basis for a lot of subsequent optimistic assumptions (principally Barbarossa) that underpinned later German planning.<br /><br />And the propaganda of the time reflects this: the battle of France was portrayed by Goebbels as a victory of German quality (most specifically: the quality of German soldiers) over superior quantity.<br /><br />Fast forward a few years and you have a situation where the superiority of German soldiers is axiomic (and has been for years), and the narrative has additionally shifted to include the qualitative superiority of the German equipment (as a way to offset the widely-acknowledge disparity in quantity). The SS, as a political organisation, is one of the leading exponents of this worldview. So of course SS officers wouldn't be too surprised that their superior troops, with superior equipment, keep racking up these unrealistically high numbers of kills. That's literally how things are supposed to work.<br /><br />In other words; it wasn't fear of punishment that made German commanders accept inflated reports. It was because they themselves believed them wholeheartedly, and saw no reason to dispute them. If you know that the numbers aren't on your side, but truly believe that your side does it better beyond what the numbers should tell, then it just isn't that surprising when your boys seem to be smacking the enemy around but still retreating.Thom Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03200667235769052060noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-22474788337017190712018-07-10T20:51:44.691-04:002018-07-10T20:51:44.691-04:00Troops of all countries made honest mistakes not k...Troops of all countries made honest mistakes not knowing how many of the enemy they really killed, or proper description of the equipment. But it's safe to say German commanders and to a smaller degree Soviet commanders were fearful of not sending back positive combat reviews. The worst that could happen to a British or American commander for losing a battle is getting demoted.Sager ,William A.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06830369127449299646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-61491082740319644062018-07-10T17:48:15.101-04:002018-07-10T17:48:15.101-04:00Exactly, and the Americans never tried to hide it,...Exactly, and the Americans never tried to hide it, either. http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-problem-of-claims.html<br /><br />Whereas a certain other military just high fived each other over how many sick frags they got all the way back to Beriln ;)Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09622237223229485503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-63391811971455615002018-07-10T15:43:27.336-04:002018-07-10T15:43:27.336-04:00I didn't mean to imply that combat units thems...I didn't mean to imply that combat units themselves check wrecks - they don't. But ordnance units do, and operational research teams do. <br /><br />The RAF and USAAF overclaiming on tank kills was really ridiculous, yet so many people today still believe that allied tactical aviation was good at tank killing. It wasn't. Dat34https://www.blogger.com/profile/05191197983174208313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-74330278914792582442018-07-10T13:52:44.656-04:002018-07-10T13:52:44.656-04:00"Imagine, for example, that an enemy tank pla..."Imagine, for example, that an enemy tank platoon is engaged by a friendly tank platoon, a few friendly infantrymen with bazookas, and a friendly towed AT gun unit. Let's say one tank blows up. That one kill might be claimed by all three friendly units in good faith, each thinking they were responsible."<br /><br />This happened in Normandy with that weird "trophy" panzer unit (Abteilung 100???). The engagement where the platoon/company-sized unit was destroyed has been examined in micro-detail by enthusiasts, aided by the existence many, many photos after the battle. One tank was claimed by at least 3 different weapons.<br /><br />One of the most common reasons for overclaiming is moving forward, seeing an enemy tank, firing immediately, and hitting and penetrating. A kill! Except the enemy tank was killed from the other side before you got there, which is why it was an easy-ish target.<br /><br />You're not going to get out an examine the wreck to make sure that your kill was "real," you're going to keep moving forward, or at least find cover!<br /><br />Overclaiming from the air is almost unavoidable. When you're closing at 200 mph, you never get a good look at the target. Naturally, every pilot re-spots the tank that was abandoned or killed in the open.Chits 'n' Thingshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01819307975178436315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-7398421511252747682018-07-10T10:46:27.508-04:002018-07-10T10:46:27.508-04:00The overclaiming happened during the war and was c...The overclaiming happened during the war and was common in all armies and indeed in the air forces. Commanders can sometimes check claims but often not. In instances when claims can be checked, it's very instructive. <br /><br />The best example I'm aware of is the Falaise pocket towards the end of the Normandy campaign. In that case a large battle area was captured by the allies after an attempted (and very nearly completed) encirclement. A huge number of German wrecks were available for inspection, and both the ground and air forces inspected them. I don't recall the exact numbers, but, the air forces overclaimed by many, many times the actual number of tanks they knocked out. They claimed dozens of tanks destroyed (appraoching 100 tanks) but actually knocked out less than a dozen or so. <br /><br />This is not atypical. Soldiers often cannot see much of what's going on and do not always know the effect of their fire. Or, overclaiming can also occur when multiple individuals/units engage the same target. Imagine, for example, that an enemy tank platoon is engaged by a friendly tank platoon, a few friendly infantrymen with bazookas, and a friendly towed AT gun unit. Let's say one tank blows up. That one kill might be claimed by all three friendly units in good faith, each thinking they were responsible. <br /><br />There is one thing to add, which is that the germans alone tended to make a big deal in their propaganda about individual 'kills'. So these wartime and postwar stories of this or that German tank 'ace' killing dozens or hundreds of enemy tanks must be treated with extreme skepticism. At best, the raw data are unclear; at worst they were deliberately made up. Dat34https://www.blogger.com/profile/05191197983174208313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030145265861917845.post-23796386937095106272018-07-10T07:25:08.605-04:002018-07-10T07:25:08.605-04:00I wonder if this trend (for more kills than there ...I wonder if this trend (for more kills than there were in reality) is a post war thing or it was happening during the war. I know everyone wants to look like hero and looks more effective but something bother me. For example, if one unit reports that it has destroyed 15 of 20 tanks and its commander knows (by reconnaissance) that the enemy has only 20 tanks in the area then he starts an attack and realize that the enemy still has 18 perfectly working tanks what would happen? Did the commanders have any way to check the claims of their own units? Otherwise the commanders would have to work with some very wrong information about the enemy which would lead to bad decisions. As a whole i think that every army is working with an accurate information so if some private claims that he has destroyed 2 tanks this is not an official information and should not be presented as the real history. In a larger scale - it would be a disaster to think that your army destroyed 2 times more tanks than it actually did. So my questions are: 1. The claims are done during the war or post war; 2. Did the commanders have any way to check the claims of their own units; 3. Are there any punishment for the soldiers if they exaggerate their successlamzanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12434388554996589279noreply@blogger.com