From: Convoy Magazine (convoymagazine@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Apr 09 2005 - 06:33:15 PDT
Everybody had a few good ideas..
The Sherman wasn't the greatest, nor the T-34, but
they were "good", could be produced quickly and
relatively cheaply.
(the Sherman by the way, incorporated some design
elements of the Canadian RAM tank which might have
been another "good" tank but was severely limited by
the shortsightedness of a small turret and teensy
gun..the RAM chassis however became the bed for a
25pdr to become a very good weapon..the Sexton!)
German panthers were not that great either, just look
at the flat front..not a great idea. German's big
problem was over-creation of variants and new models
(in everything --tanks, vehicles-etc..creating a parts
supply nightmare and sucking up resources in producing
so many different parts and in new design development
efforts..
Sure the King tiger may have been the best.. but by
the time it was finally developed, they were already
in deep doodoo and only very few were produced.
Tacticians believe the Germans would have been better
off to stick with the "adequate" panthers and just
produce more of them.
Rmember a dozen second or even third rate weapons will
overcome a single 'best' weapon.
A "late" friend was an SS machine gunner..he stated
that in the action in which he surrendered they were
up against tanks and infantry late in the war. He
said, as soon as we knocked out one tank, two more
would appear, we'd take out one of them and two more
would come..we couldnt believe how much stuff they
had..they'd overrun our pits and just do a spin on top
of the guys.. that was enough for the rest of us..
As for British superiority..certainly the brits had
genius.. the Mosquito, the Spitfire etc.. but were
often hampered by shortsightedness
elsewhere..unecessarily small engines in their
vehicles for example.
Why has the Japanese motor industry done so well? In
many many cases they took the British designs, cars
and motos..studied the concepts (which were good) and
simply translate the concepts as they should have, and
then built to better specs and with much greater care.
(Certainly not the whole answer, but a good part of
it)
I do believe also there has always been some
reluctance on the part of the US to adopt foreign
designs.
Marc-2
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat May 07 2005 - 20:42:53 PDT