Author Topic: Picture of the Day  (Read 2081234 times)

Offline Kasztelan

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16545 on: 11-03-2019, 11:03:09 »


Wounded Polish soldier during Battle of Kolberg. March, 1945.

Offline Leopardi

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16546 on: 11-03-2019, 14:03:56 »

Offline Seth_Soldier

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16547 on: 11-03-2019, 19:03:06 »

Offline nysä

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16548 on: 12-03-2019, 07:03:22 »


"Germans blowing up buildings as they withdraw". Dvinsk, Latvia. Between 10-26 July 1944
« Last Edit: 12-03-2019, 07:03:41 by nysä »

Offline Kasztelan

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16549 on: 12-03-2019, 09:03:43 »

Offline radiosmersh

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16550 on: 12-03-2019, 14:03:08 »
Certainly, ISU-152 became greatly feared by German heavy tank crews. Like on 14 March 1945 in Hungary, twentyfour dug-in ISU-152 (protected by a minefield) managed to damage sixteen Tiger II from schwere Panzer-Abteilung 509. Later during the day, two sPz.Abt 509 Tiger II seized the strongpoint, knocking out all twentyfour "beast killers". After five days, all battle damaged Tiger II were repaired and running again. Ironically, only 10 days later, fourteen of these Tigers II had to be destroyed due to lack of fuel (source: Wolfgang Schneider: Tigers in Combat)
Indeed they were and to such an extent that they falsely claimed those. I hope you don't think of me as a necromancer, but I had doubts about that encounter initially, and this blog post I came across recently reinforced my suspitions even further, so I deciced to conduct my own investigation on the matter.

The only units in the area between Velencefürdő and Tükröspuszta (according to this map, original here) armed with ISU-152s were 1443th SPA Regiment of 23th Tanks Corps (6 vehicles) and 363 Guards SPA Regiment of 18th Tanks Corps (4 vehicles, 3 operational) with only 4 ISU-122s lost during the period from 13th to 15th March. Well, maybe then Germans then had mistaken ISUs for some other type of SPAG?  The only relatively closest engagement in terms of Soviet losses I could find occurred on 12th March when 60 German tanks attacked positions of 207th SPA Brigade, disabling 19 out of 63 SU-100 it had in expense of their own 38 tanks and SPGs.
That means that either Soviet (which I highly doubt) or German battle reports are incorrect,
which is not surpising taking into account the mess in German papers towards the end of the war and the fact that many of them were simply lost.

EDIT: Added picture to comply with the rules:



The grave of French tankers and Char B1-bis tank near Châlons-sur-Marne.
« Last Edit: 12-03-2019, 15:03:47 by radiosmersh »

Offline nysä

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16551 on: 12-03-2019, 17:03:14 »
Well, maybe then Germans then had mistaken ISUs for some other type of SPAG? 

That means that either Soviet (which I highly doubt) or German battle reports are incorrect,
which is not surpising taking into account the mess in German papers towards the end of the war and the fact that many of them were simply lost.

I agree, AFVs were often misidentified on both sides: StuG frequently appearing as Ferdinand and Panzer IV refered as Tiger in Soviet (and Allied) battle reports, photographs. But then again, what makes you think these records are more credible or less inflated than German ones? And would you credit "TankArchives" as an objective, unbiased source?


Spoiler


...Capable of dealing with the entire German Zoo.
Just to make clear, my respond was intended in the same, somewhat exaggerated vein as the post above. Distortion and even revisionism can rise, when historical research is driven or motivated by the political compass. But we all are guilty of that. "Who pays the piper calls the tune", and so on.
« Last Edit: 12-03-2019, 20:03:22 by nysä »

Offline Ts4EVER

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16552 on: 12-03-2019, 17:03:03 »
Generally loss reports are more credible than kill counts, which are often enflated and hard to track during combat. There is also an incentive in internal reports to inflate enemy losses, but not reporting your own lost vehicles is rather foolish, since that means not receiving replacements or being assigned missions above your strength. So in historical science you ususally check kill claims by looking at the opposing sides losses for the day. In the past this was rather hard to achieve for the Soviet side, but after the opening of Russian archives it has become easier and shown that German kill claims for the Eastern Front were (as for all sides) greatly exaggerated.

Offline Seth_Soldier

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16553 on: 12-03-2019, 19:03:31 »

Offline Torenico

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16554 on: 13-03-2019, 03:03:43 »
I recall the Germans being very inconsistent on their kill reports. People often bring up the "Ferdinand had a 10:1 kill ratio" and I just laugh my ass off. No way that monument to human stupidity had that kill ratio.


Offline nysä

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16555 on: 13-03-2019, 06:03:41 »
I recall the Germans being very inconsistent on their kill reports. People often bring up the "Ferdinand had a 10:1 kill ratio" and I just laugh my ass off. No way that monument to human stupidity had that kill ratio.

Inconsistency goes both ways. One Russian expert (Mikhail Svirin) claims, that twelve (12) Elefanten were destroyed by the Red Army in the Berlin area, six being captured infact with full ammunition. Hahah.. I mean really.

Offline Kasztelan

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16556 on: 13-03-2019, 11:03:12 »

Offline Seth_Soldier

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16557 on: 13-03-2019, 19:03:08 »

Offline nysä

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16558 on: 13-03-2019, 20:03:52 »

Offline Leopardi

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Re: Picture of the Day
« Reply #16559 on: 13-03-2019, 22:03:53 »


Road to Petrozavodsk, 28th September 1941.