Why Did German Tanks Perform So Badly in The Battle of the Bulge?

to follow on the 17th of December 1944 an advanced Echelon of mechanized SS troops approached the last bridge over the lien river near the town of shravid these are the men of Kampf grouper Piper led by SS Ober Stern vanfurer jochen Piper leading the nearly 16 mile long column of vehicles with a fearsome tiger 2 or King Tiger heavy tanks the armor on the 72-ton monsters had proved difficult to penetrate by all but the hardest hitting Allied guns having fought their way through the thick Woods of the Arden Forest the bridge at Charlotte was an obstacle for Piper he needed to get his men across the river so they could continue their Advance West [Music] however once the panzers reached the foot of the bridge the lead tank commander realized that it would not support the weight of his King tigers instead half tracks were sent across where they were ambushed and destroyed by American paratroopers with no more bridges to try the long column of German vehicles was forced to turn around and prepare for another attempt the following day in fact Camp Cooper Piper would come no closer to their objectives during the campaign the debacle at the Chauvin Bridge was a demonstration of how Germany's tank Corps was poorly suited for the task handed to them by the fuhrer scenes such as this one were repeated across the front and the subpar performance of the panzers was a component in why the Arden offensive ultimately failed there is a combination of reasons for this outcome some of which have been known before the offensive and others that sprung up as the German spearheads lunged for The Miz River difficult terrain misallocation of resources and tactical deficiencies all played a role in the failure of the German panzers during the Battle of the Bulge the Arden forest was perhaps the worst possible combat environment for German tanks during the second World War the fuhrer based his plan for the offensive on case yellow the Vermont's armored Dash through the Arden in 1940 surprising the French and British armies however in 1940 the German units Advanced quickly through the largely undefended ardenne only facing determined resistance when they were free of its Rolling Hills and thick Woods the December 1944 offensive called for German Ground Forces to do battle within the forest themselves against entrenched Defenders as a result the men assaulting the ardenne were already at a distinct disadvantage before the offensive Piper was asked by a senior officer to determine whether a 45-ton Panther Tank could travel 34 miles during a nighttime advance Piper sent a tank crew who successfully drove the distance but both men understood how useless this was one of the crewmen later said it was a crazy exercise because it proved nothing only that a tank could drive that distance at night along paved roads our actual route in the attack was through mud in forests when the heavy panzers entered the vast Woods of the Arden their drivers found the roads were much too small to support a speedy advance many of the routes were nothing more than dirt trails which would only support single Lane traffic a major issue for the immense tigers and King tigers in the 1940 campaign the nine ton Panzer II coped much better with the poor Rose compared to the vermark's Beer moths of 1944. even when the German armor found open areas amongst the trees the wet and slushy ground made it impossible to advance off-road as the heavy tanks sunk into the mud Piper lamented after the war that the terrain was worse in the Arden than it was in Russia he bitterly remarked that his route through the forest was not fit for tanks only bicycles however the landscape only exacerbated the reich's greatest weakness the constant lack of fuel while the fuel efficiency of most of its Vehicles were poor the worst culprit was the King Tiger despite being one of Germany's most famous Panzer leaders Piper despised the tank for its many faults Chief among them was the fact that it barely made half a mile per gallon in comparison the most common German tank the Panzer IV and the American Sherman achieved a fuel efficiency more than double that of the tiger too despite that terrible fuel efficiency a mechanical unreliability a massive one-third of Germany's total production of tiger Twos for the entire war was deployed to the Arden in the winter of 1944. aside from the reich's dire lack of fuel the dwindling supply of other key components sapped the effectiveness of the Panzer core the decline in quality of Germany's steel industry during the last years of the war is an issue that directly impacted tank production the Allied strategic bombing campaign disrupted the German war economy by attacking both production centers and transportation hubs with the steel industry supply chain a key Target as such even if German iron ore was delivered to a tank Factory on time it often lacks necessary Alloys which would prevent steel from becoming brittle this led to a significant downgrade in Effectiveness as the quality of Panza armor grew steadily more inconsistent furthermore German over engineering made it difficult to build and maintain a large tank core the Vermont's experience fighting the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front led to its newest tank models being designed around defeating the t-34 the panther tiger and tiger 2 were all built with thicker armor a heavier Armament and wider tracks with improved targeting equipment the downside of such a drastic overhaul was the need to produce more complicated Parts which dramatically increase production time and costs for example a single tiger one tank required 300 000 man hours to manufacture compared to 48 000 for a Sherman Additionally the volume of specialized components needed for German tanks to run properly ensured that any production shortfall would be damaging to the Panzer core thanks in part to a lack of raw materials and the Allied bombing campaign there was never a large surplus of spare parts to send to the front during the Battle of the Bulge German tank Crews were often forced to abandon their vehicle once it broke down due to lack of parts the overly complicated design of the later generation Panthers and tigers also required the engine and transmission to be removed a lengthy process that could take days as a result German tanks could never deploy in large enough numbers in the Arden to overwhelm the American Defenders at a strategic level the use of heavy tanks such as the tiger tiger 2 and panther in this role represented a gross misallocation of resources during the late stage of the war yet that is not to say German tanks were completely ineffective or incapable of inflicting considerable damage during the Allied counter-offensive to push back the Bulge in the Arden a single tiger one tank perched itself in the center of the Belgian town of bjor and was assaulted by British Shermans on the 4th of January 1945. due to the excellent positioning and artillery support the tiger was able to knock out more than a dozen Shermans as British armor-piercing rounds failed to penetrate the thick frontal armor there is little doubt that the newest German heavy tanks were devastating in the right hands especially in a defensive position however the Arden offensive was the wrong battlefield for this type of tank aside from the poor Road Network the large profile of the tiger 2 could easily be seen from the air making them obvious targets for the yambos Allied fighter bombers with the unreliability of resupply during the battle part of the German plan rested on capturing American fuel Depots intact which proved to be a rare occurrence in comparison to the front-line German heavy panzers Stoke assault guns were cheaper to produce had better fuel efficiency and carried the same reliable 75 millimeter gun of the Panzer IV it was a far more efficient choice for combating Allied armor by December of 1944. nonetheless the fuhrer only looked at tank numbers and armaments believing that bigger was always better as such production of the expensive and over-engineered heavy panzers was given priority over more sensible options finally Allied tanks were more than capable of defeating German tanks during the Battle of the Bulge thanks to Mechanical advantages the panzer's main opponent was the M4 Sherman which was the backbone of American armored units but also carried several liabilities in comparison to its heavier German counterparts the Sherman had a smaller main Armament thinner armor and worse Optics the narrower caterpillar tracks also provided less traction on snow and ice whereas Panthers and tiger twos coped much better with the winter roads these German tanks were also capable of pivoting on the spot giving them an advantage in urban combat yet the Sherman's turret employed a much faster electrical Traverse which allowed the Gunner to train on the targets quicker than his enemies furthermore the Sherman employed spring-loaded hatches which improved crew survivability while the German tank crew were forced to lift heavy metal slats using nothing but brute strength in order to escape a burning tank Allied superiority in production also pay dividends during the Battle of the Bulge whereas German tanks were starved of spare parts replacement components reached American and British crews even In the Heat of battle Simplicity in design also allowed for Sherman Crews to perform Battlefield repairs much faster than their components perhaps most importantly a large proportion of the Shermans in the art Den had been upgraded which leveled the playing field in some instances during the Allied counter-offensive German tanks were faced with the Fearsome Sherman Firefly the British variant of the American Sherman tank the Firefly employed a high velocity 76 millimeter gun which could penetrate armor better even than the infamous German 88 millimeter not even the tiger 2's frontal armor could stop and accurately placed anti-tank round from the Firefly finally giving the Allies a tank which could outgun the enemy much has been made of German Ingenuity in tank design during the second world war but the art and offensive exposed the worst flaws in the rice panzers in a campaign which required a speedy and constant Advance German tanks were often bogged down in traffic jams broken down or simply out of fuel after a few miles rather than inspiring widespread fear amongst the American GIS in the Arden they were instead mocked the venerated tiger 2 was described as a tyrannosaurus which was too big and too dumb to succeed and sloth through the mud like a primeval Beast by the end of the battle these so-called beasts had been outclassed by American and British tanks which proves more reliable cheaper and effective in combat foreign

Channel: The Intel Report

Views: 1,528,678

Keywords: ww2, documentary, history, battle of the bulge, us army, band of brothers, tiger tank, bastogne, st vith, king tiger, panther tank

Id: 1pdlKrNgOV8

Length: 11min 46sec (706 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 11 2022