What if Germany Just Produced: ‘Good Enough’ Equipment?

"The Allies" meaning tank crews? If what has been speculated in this thread is true (not sourced, but I assume the respective people could do so if called upon), those crews were probably drilled on maneuvers in platoons of five tanks that could reliably take on Tiger tanks. It's not my area but one person who did explain it to me once, admittedly fourth-hand or so, was that it took that multiple tanks to outmaneuver the Germans and get someone into a position where they could take a shot at one of its more vulnerable sides.

If there's truth in that, or at least if it's not too wildly off what the original explanation was, then it's not so much that you will lose about five Shermans to kill a Tiger as that you need larger numbers of Sherman tanks operating in tandem in order to expose the weaknesses of the Tiger tanks.

I don't know if this is the truth or not, but it at least sounds plausible, and perhaps someone can confirm it.
Sorry I don't have any first hand knowledge of this matter but I recall reading what I felt was a fairly plausible account of Tiger vs Sherman combat that said something along the lines of..

"Usually cost a Sherman" ie a group of several Sherman tanks could expect to take down a Tiger tank but they could expect to loose a Sherman tank in the process. I didn't get the impression that it was considered usual to loose most of Sherman tanks involved.
 
Thanks, everyone, for clarifying my question. Sorry if it sidetracked the thread.

Having clarified that things like "5 to 1" are issues of doctrine rather than loss rates, the question then becomes what happens if the Germans could or would have fielded a tank force made up of numerically more but somewhat simpler units. That in turn raises some obvious logistical issues, namely to do with fuel supplies. I also don't know the relative mileages but I assume that the Sherman most assuredly does not use just 20% of the fuel of an average German tank.
 
Thanks, everyone, for clarifying my question. Sorry if it sidetracked the thread.

Having clarified that things like "5 to 1" are issues of doctrine rather than loss rates, the question then becomes what happens if the Germans could or would have fielded a tank force made up of numerically more but somewhat simpler units. That in turn raises some obvious logistical issues, namely to do with fuel supplies. I also don't know the relative mileages but I assume that the Sherman most assuredly does not use just 20% of the fuel of an average German tank.

I wouldn't discount a high kill rate for the Tiger and what effect this would have on doctrine, its a chicken and egg thing I suspect.
 
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The other day I saw a source claiming that it took 4000 man hours to produce a Me Bf109, but 12.000 too produce a Spitfire! I haven't seen that figure before but if it is just near the truth I think it very much puts the idea about expensive German materiel in perspective (as false).
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I have seen those figures and its notable the 4,000 hours for a 109 were from the 1944 period when the 109 was a much simpler plane to build than the earlier models. The 12,000 hour figure for the Spit was from the early production at the Castle Bromwich factory in 1940 when frankly the factory was a shambles and the people in charge should have been shot for incompetence. Later models of Spit were taking around 9,500 to 11,000 man hours, depending on version high altitude versions taking the longest to build.

Its also very hard to measure how much things cost to make in money or man hours because different countries had different accounting standards. The 4,000 hours for a 109 might just be for the airframe not including engine, armament or any other equipment. The workers probably had some encouragement to work faster in the form of a free pass to go and fight the Russians for anyone not meeting their quota.

Looks like those were airframe man-hours to produce - link
Like the Italian fighters*, majority of Spitfire's wing ribs were built-up items (one rib consisted from 10, give or take segments), while Bf-109, Typhoon, P-36/-40, P-39 etc. used stamped ribs (one piece). Bf 109 was also smaller and lighter aircraft, that got to account for something in saving in production cost and duration. Seems like it took 2.5 times more man-hours to produce Spitfire than Hurricane airframe.

*no wonder Germans were not impressed by forecast of Italian designs being produced instead of Bf 109
 
Looks like those were airframe man-hours to produce - link
Like the Italian fighters*, majority of Spitfire's wing ribs were built-up items (one rib consisted from 10, give or take segments), while Bf-109, Typhoon, P-36/-40, P-39 etc. used stamped ribs (one piece). Bf 109 was also smaller and lighter aircraft, that got to account for something in saving in production cost and duration.

Yet somehow the shadow factory at Castle Bromwich made 12,129 Spitfires between 1940 and 45, The main Messerschmidt factory at Regensberg only made 10,423 Bf109s between 1939 and 45.

The figures are from wiki so could be miles out but the 109 claim of 4,000 hour per airfame figure just doesnt add up for me.

Seems like it took 2.5 times more man-hours to produce Spitfire than Hurricane airframe.

I have only ever come across two figures Hurricane production man hours one was 9,500 the other was 10,300. Possibly the 2.5 figure is actually a misreading of 2,500 hours more.

Frustratingly there seems to be very little information on aircraft production during WWII from Germany or Britain. A 1 hour googling session got me pretty much nowhere.
 
Yet somehow the shadow factory at Castle Bromwich made 12,129 Spitfires between 1940 and 45, The main Messerschmidt factory at Regensberg only made 10,423 Bf109s between 1939 and 45.

The figures are from wiki so could be miles out but the 109 claim of 4,000 hour per airfame figure just doesnt add up for me.

Do we know how many workers worked at CB and MTT factories each? Factory space, machine tools? MTT bombing?
Lockheed produced almost 10000 P-38s in a single factory, despite the P-38 being probably the most complicated fighter of ww2. Or Willow Run production of B-24s, almost 7000 produced plus kits for other ~1900 kits for B-24s for other manufacturers.
 

Anchises

Banned
I think the mythos of standardization is part of the legacy that Speer tried to build.

Sure it would have helped to not waste capacities on some of the crazy projects but that is only a (small) part of the truth.

Imho a strategic focus on the Soviets and the realization that it would be a prolonged war in the East would have helped much more.

The Soviet War Industry alone couldn't have prevailed against the Germans.

With Lend and Lease, Strategic Bombing, Secondary Fronts etc. the Germans were doomed to fail though.

"Best Case" would be instant sunshine in the Ruhrgebiet and Eastern Europe/ Western Russia even more devastated.
 
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Yet somehow the shadow factory at Castle Bromwich made 12,129 Spitfires between 1940 and 45, The main Messerschmidt factory at Regensberg only made 10,423 Bf109s between 1939 and 45.

The figures are from wiki so could be miles out but the 109 claim of 4,000 hour per airfame figure just doesnt add up for me.



I have only ever come across two figures Hurricane production man hours one was 9,500 the other was 10,300. Possibly the 2.5 figure is actually a misreading of 2,500 hours more.

Frustratingly there seems to be very little information on aircraft production during WWII from Germany or Britain. A 1 hour googling session got me pretty much nowhere.

See the thing is - its not the complexity, its not the cost or man hours - its the type of factory and CB was a Khan style factory (eventually about 6-12 months later than it should have done) that is it leverages lots of single task dedicated machine tools - that is enough machine tools that a given tool does not have to be reset and calibrated for different tasks. This allows relatively untrained and unskilled workers to...well Gracie tells it best...
 
Some Soviet production numbers, 1941-45. Per factory numbered as:
#1 - Moscow, then relocated to Kuybishev (Samara) today: 16236, 4 types of A/C (I-153, MiG-3, Il-2, Il-10)
#18 - Voronezh, then relocated to Kuybishev, too: 16933 (DB-3, Er-2, Il-2, Il-10)
#21 - Gorky (Nizhni Novgorod): 17511 (I-16 1- and 2-seat, LaGG-3, La-5, La-7, five Yak-7s included)
#22 - Fili, then Kazan: 10329 (mostly 2-engined bombers, but also Pe-8)
#30 - Moscow: 8865 (Il-2)
#152 - Novosibirsk: 16878 (mostly Yak-7 and -9, earlier I-16 and LaGG-3)
#292 - Saratov: 12134 (Yak-1 and -3)

There was another almost 30 factories that produced hundreds of A/C.
 
German tanks would apparently lure enemy tanks back into a anti-tank kill zone if possible, much like the Iraqi kill box strategy against the Iranians.
But, basically you are absolutely right in this observation IMO

This was Rommel in a nutshell. That's how the 88's got their reputation. I read stories that the British thought it was "unsporting" for the Germans to use anti-aircraft guns against tanks.
 
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