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Molentik posted:The Seehund was crewed by two. But yeah, the German midget subs were pretty hardcore (and suicidal). Saying awake on meth pills, making GBS threads in empty cans and slowly suffocating because of the CO2 leaking truck engine; true Wunderwaffe! all u-boat service was suicidal. they had a loving 75% casualty rate. You have to pretty much resign yourself to death by drowning (if your lucky) when you sign up.
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Apr 11, 2015 18:59
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It was in the later stages of the war. Prior to that they pretty much owned the water. Hell, they sunk ships right off the US coast and there was fuckall we could do about it
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Apr 12, 2015 13:56
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My favorite Uboat story is how the crews of the 'Monsun' boats (Type IX Uboats stationed in Indonesia) were stranded there after the war and decided to help the Indonesians in their battle for independence from the Dutch by building a DIY mini-sub. loving lol
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Apr 12, 2015 17:25
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Ensign Expendable posted:PzIVs, StuGs and Jagdpanzer 38ts enjoyed a decent amount of postwar service, it's the Tigers and Panthers that were completely unacceptable from a logistics standpoint. The French chose Panthers over not having tanks at all and could get 150 km on average out of them before the transmission crumbled. The Panther had an especially lovely transmission, and was whenever possible transported by rail to keep itn from wearing out too fast. A transmission required a day to replace, where the engine could be swapped in 8 hours by a good repair crew. Doccers posted:There's a photo somewhere of a french port in the 1990's that had a converted Panther chassis as a crane.  The panther was costly (in materiel and manhours), it had a delicate drive-train, was prone to catching fire due to lovely rubber hoses, and tied up a hell of a lot of resources when deployed because it was constantly being repaired and ferried around on trains. When it was working perfectly, and operated by a good crew with a good maintenance team, it was a hell of a deadly tank that could dish out and take lots of punishment, and appear with little to no warning due to its speed and cross-country handling. Basically it's one of the best tanks of the war if you unclick the "realism option". On the other hand, the BF-109 Messerschmitt required a fraction of the materials or manhours of other aircraft, could swap the engine in 15 minutes or less, and was extremely reliable, even in adverse conditions like Russia in the winter. It's only real downfall was the pigeon-toed wheels on the landing gear that made ground-handling tricky for new pilots.
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Apr 12, 2015 18:54
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Molentik posted:My favorite Uboat story is how the crews of the 'Monsun' boats (Type IX Uboats stationed in Indonesia) were stranded there after the war and decided to help the Indonesians in their battle for independence from the Dutch by building a DIY mini-sub. this is hella interesting do u have any links
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Apr 12, 2015 20:15
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Blistex posted:The Panther had an especially lovely transmission, and was whenever possible transported by rail to keep itn from wearing out too fast. A transmission required a day to replace, where the engine could be swapped in 8 hours by a good repair crew. It's another thing the Americans and Russians got right with their tanks. Things like the T-34 were fairly easy to overhaul and repair compared to the more complex tanks like the Panther. Also the allies were masters at repairing badly damaged tanks and returning them to the front.
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Apr 12, 2015 20:18
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etalian posted:Also the allies were masters at repairing badly damaged tanks and returning them to the front. It's a lot easier though when you hold the battlefield after the engagement, which is a pretty big advantage the Allies had from being on the offensive for the latter part of the war. A tank that's had its tread blown off and was abandoned is just as much a loss as a tank that was destroyed by a catastrophic ammunition explosion if you can't retrieve it.
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Apr 12, 2015 20:31
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Pornographic Memory posted:It's a lot easier though when you hold the battlefield after the engagement, which is a pretty big advantage the Allies had from being on the offensive for the latter part of the war. A tank that's had its tread blown off and was abandoned is just as much a loss as a tank that was destroyed by a catastrophic ammunition explosion if you can't retrieve it. More so, in a way, since the enemy can potentially repair it.
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Apr 12, 2015 20:35
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Ambrose Burnside posted:this is hella interesting do u have any links I'm afraid not, I uploaded the photos to imgur before my HDD crashed. I found the photos in the National Archives and it said that after the war the Uboat crews got stuck in Indonesia, and they even guarded the interment camps together with the Japanese to keep the Indonesians from lynching the interned Dutch  . Some decided to join the Indonesians and build two of these deathtraps in a weaponsfactory in Djocja, and it was discovered in 1949. I know I found a discussion about these subs somewhere, saying that one of them sank like a brick with their crew on it's first testdrive and the other was captured. I can't for the life of me find that discussion, but I think it was on the Axis History Forums.  Scale model
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Apr 12, 2015 20:53
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Pornographic Memory posted:It's a lot easier though when you hold the battlefield after the engagement, which is a pretty big advantage the Allies had from being on the offensive for the latter part of the war. A tank that's had its tread blown off and was abandoned is just as much a loss as a tank that was destroyed by a catastrophic ammunition explosion if you can't retrieve it. Exactly, when the Germans were on the offensive and taking ground, all those tigers, panthers and even Ferdinands/Elefants were retrieved, repaired and put back into action in days or sometimes hours. When the tide turned and it was the Soviets taking round, all of those tanks that would normally have required 30 minutes with a good retrieval crew ended up beign total write-offs because there was no way to keep them from ending up in the enemy hands. So a lot of those figures that say, "50 tigers knocked out in August" could have meant, -05 had repeated penetrations and "brewed up" -10 had transmission issues (crew blew them up with explosives before retreating) -15 threw tracks after running over an AP/AT mine (crew blew them up with explosives before retreating) -10 became bogged down in soft ground (crew blew them up with explosives before retreating) -05 ran out of fuel (crew blew them up with explosives before retreating) -05 had non-catastrophic damage that rendered them combat ineffective (crew blew them up with explosives before retreating) So back in 1942/3 you'd have the Germans putting 45 of those 50 back into use within days, while in 44-45 every single instance where one of them becomes immobile results in a total loss due to the crew destroying it, or the spot it was knocked out in happens to now be in enemy territory. When the Germans were retreating on the eastern and western front, they generally kept putting rounds into US/Soviet tanks until they blew up, burned out, or had enough critical damage to render the vehicle a complete write-off because they (the US especially) were really good at taking a wrecked vehicle and getting it back into the fight in no time.
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Apr 12, 2015 22:23
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