Steven Zaloga - Armored Champion: The Top Tanks of World War II

Copyright 2015 by Steven Zaloga

Published by
STACKPOLE BOOKS
5067 Ritter Road
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
www.stackpolebooks.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Unless otherwise noted, the photos in this book come from official U.S. government sources including the National Archives and Records Administration II in College Park, Maryland; the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; and the Patton Museum, formerly at Fort Knox, Kentucky; as well as the authors personal collection.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Zaloga, Steve, 1952

Armored champion : top tanks of World War II / Steven Zaloga.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8117-1437-2 (alk. paper)

eISBN 978-0-8117-6113-0

1. World War, 19391945Tank warfare. 2. Tanks (Military science)History20th century. 3. Armored vehicles, MilitaryHistory20th century. I. Title. II. Title: Top tanks of World War II.

D793.Z339 2015

940.54'2dc23

2014044753

Contents

CHAPTER 1

What Makes a Great Tank?

WHAT WAS THE BEST TANK OF WORLD WAR II? This book argues that there was no single best tank of World War II. While the Tiger may have been the best tank in the summer of 1943, it was merely an engineers dream in 1941. Instead, this book takes snapshots in time to examine the best tanks at critical points during World War II. The approach that I have taken is not merely to provide opinions. Instead, I have supplied extensive documentation from archives, government studies, and a wide selection of published sources. Much of this has never been published in English before. Even if readers do not agree with my judgments, I hope that this book will provide them with ample data to draw their own conclusions.

What makes a tank great? The most obvious is the holy trinity of tank design: armor, firepower, and mobility. Nevertheless, evaluating these features depends on the date. A tank protected with 45mm armor was invulnerable in 1941, but it was doomed to quick defeat by 1945. A tank armed with a 76mm gun was a world-beater in 1941, but by 1945 was a pop-gun in a tank-versus-tank duel.

Besides the holy trinity, other factors are equally vital: crew training, tactics, affordability, and dependability. The T-34 tank was clearly the best tank on the 1941 battlefield in purely technical terms. But it was a dismal failure on the battlefield due to poor crew training, poor unit organization, and wretched employment. The Panther tank was a fearsome adversary in the summer of 1944, but by the winter of 194445 it had lost its edge because of inexperienced crews and crippling technical deterioration.

If we were only measuring the technical aspects of tank designs, it would be very easy to come up with a nice and simple technical comparison chart and pick the winner by straightforward numerical evaluation. But war, like all human endeavors, is complicated by a variety of factors that are not easily subject to numerical evaluation. Purely mathematical evaluations contain a false disguise of objectivity. A table of clean little numbers seems utterly scientific and fair, but inevitably contains bias and distortion.

Any comparative table is based on value judgments that arbitrarily skew the assessment in one direction or another. From our current perspective, we think of tanks in the modern framework of main battle tanks. Contemporary armies employ a single, versatile type of tank that can serve in all tactical roles, whether it is tank-versus-tank fighting, fast exploitation, or close combat infantry fire support. But in 1939, most armies saw the need for multiple types of tanks, each tailored for specific tactical requirements. Most armies had a trio of types: a light tank or tankette for reconnaissance, an infantry tank to support rifle troops in close combat, and a cavalry tank for the fast exploitation mission. The qualities that make a great infantry tank, such as thick armor and good high-explosive firepower, are not as relevant in the cavalry tank role where speed and antitank firepower are more valuable. So it becomes very difficult to create a comparative table to determine the best tank since the criteria being used are likely to favor one tactical role with the risk of deprecating the combat values of another tank type. This is especially true in the 193942 period when most armies had hybrid tank fleets. By 1945, armies were moving in the direction of main battle tanks with the bulk of their fleets based on a single type, but there were still separate categories for light and heavy tanks roughly corresponding to the old scout and infantry tanks.

Cost is also a significant factor in war. Some armies would prefer to have a large but inexpensive tank fleet; others prefer to have a smaller number of better-quality tanks. In a tank-versus-tank fight, the better expensive tank may dominate, but from the broader perspective, a larger number of mediocre tanks may provide the critical edge on the battlefield.

With these factors in mind, three assessments of tank effectiveness can be made. In this book, I am calling them Tankers Choice, Battlefield Dynamics, and Commanders Choice. As I will explain in a moment, Battlefield Dynamics is a very important criteria, but almost impossible to quantify. So, I will offer a Tankers Choice and Commanders Choice for Top Tank of a given era. I do not pretend that my choices are the only plausible ones. Judgments such as these are subjective, and in some cases I have deliberately selected a more provocative choice. Readers can make their own judgments, and it is my hope that this book will provide the data and historical context to improve the choices.

TANKERS CHOICE

Tankers Choice is the most basic assessment, focusing on the holy trinity of protection, firepower, and mobility. A tank crew would obviously choose a tank with the best features in these three categories. Tank crews really dont care if the tank is horribly expensive; they arent paying for it. They simply want the best tank. Tankers Choice is often threat-driven. This evaluation is closely tied to the capabilities of the main threat against its survivability.

Several armies conducted operational research during World War II and in the years after to try to quantify technical effectiveness. After World War II, the British Army Operational Research Group (AORG) attempted to calculate the technical effectiveness of tanks in tank-versus-tank engagements using both theoretical parameters and data collected from the 194445 campaigns. Effectiveness was defined as the reciprocal of the number of tanks required per enemy tank to achieve parity in battle. One of these studies tried to compare the PzKpfw IV Ausf. H against several common British tanks. In the evaluation, the PzKpfw IV was given a rating of 1 and the British tanks were The results are shown in more detail in Chapter 8.