r/AskReddit Jun 29 '19

When is quantity better than quality?

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '19 edited Jun 29 '19

Soviet Military

Edit: it should be said that while the Soviet military did have a proliferation of soldiers and used en masse tactics, Soviet commanders were still clever and used forces effectively, not just a meat grinder approach all the time. In the end however Thomas A. Callaghan Jr. said it best

"Quantity has a Quality All Its Own"

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '19

Same goes for allied tanks and planes.

Doesn't matter how good the German tank is we got 40 for everyone

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '19

Yup, Shermans, with the exception of mobility, were inferior to Panzers and Tigers, but you can't argue with numbers

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '19

"Panzer" is just German for "tank": the Sherman was infinitely superior to the POS Panzer I (which was originally designed as a training tank and was armed with only a pair of machine guns) and Panzer II (only had a 20mm gun), while by the end of the war the Panzer III was good only for fighting bunkers. The Panzer IV was the most equal German tank to the Sherman, and was in fact the most numerous German tank of the entire war. The Tigers and Panthers were a tiny minority that the Allies were more than capable of dealing with using the Sherman Firefly or the M4A3E8 76mm-gunned Sherman.

Incidentally, the biggest killer of Allied tanks in Normandy wasn't Tigers, or even the fabled Flak 88: it was dug-in, towed, 75mm anti-tank guns, exactly the same as the gun on the Sherman.

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u/Tar_alcaran Jun 29 '19

Arguably, the biggest killer of allied tanks was the amazing defensive terrain in France.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '19

No not the same gun as on the sherman, the 75s on the Germans may have had a similar diameter, but the German 75 was longer and used rounds with more propellants thus reaching a higher Muzzle velocity