"Truth" about "Panzer Aces" 

Hey I'm famous now

Comrade Pramod Dubey ツ patreon probably

@@googleaccount93 throw some shinny coins at MHV and watch magic happen, or get to hear MHV criticize me for pioneer spam in CoH2 when he streams on twitch

Military History not Visualized, a lot of debate has raged around the Tiger unit kill ratios. Normandy it was quoted 510 Schneider, when the 21st army written off was 1211. It does not add up with the scientific reporting where the Tigers were the least effective. Is it correct to say these kill ratios are total rubbish or it is better to consider the unit, Division or Regiment logistic level. Would you consider discussing the tank kill numbers quoted for Kursk with the good Doctor, because some quoted numbers are greater than the total tanks involved.

clasps s/b clashes?

That's the best thing I've read in a long time.

I made this same mistake when I was a kid, too. I think back on it and cringe all the time.

It may not be right but it is a very ancient rite. Collecting scalps, ears, shrunken heads etc etc is as old as when the first primitive man picked up a rock and hit his neighbor over the head. In short, a dick measuring contest.

He is/was a good man

No true soldier would ever talk about killings.

Even "kill" can be confusing. With airplanes, it's clear a "kill" is the enemy plane crashes. But for tanks, it's not so clear. Yes, if a tank blows up when you hit it, that's a "kill". But what if you just disable its main gun? What if you disable its tracks? What if the enemy crew abandons their tank after shots are fired, but you're not sure why? What if, in the noise and smoke of an intense firefight, the tank you've fired at in the distance doesn't seem to do anything after that, but that's all you know?

@@adm0iii I think the more pressing question for most commanders isn't that "how many of them we killed" but rather "how many of us can still fight". Is our "company" a company or is it a squad in strength.

@@adm0iii On top of the fact visibility is absolutely terrible in most WWII tanks unless the commander is turned out. U know u score a hit but is it fatal especially at long distances with tank destroyers.

@@adm0iii more like you see a dot 700 meters away and your not sure if it's a bush or a tank, you shoot at it and nothing happens and you can't approach it to inspect it since this is the battlefield and you have to continue to manuever and look for targets. Real life is nothing like a 18 year old keyboard warrior playing Battlefield can imagine. Things are never black and white. People like surviving rather than arguing on the internet.

Oh, and I should add that even air "kills", which _should_ be obvious, were inaccurate. In the Battle of Britain, the German's total kill claims were about double the number of planes the Royal Air Force actually lost.

As a Vietnam and Gulf War vet I remember the first time I was shot at. The first kill, I bet he wished he had stayed at home. What I do remember best are the pranks we played , and the guys we lost. I can understand the Tankers not knowing how many successes they scored. Not something you think about as it could have been you instead of him. At those times in your life remembering, and actually, taking a dump in a flush toilet is heaven. Counting kills has no place in that dream.

too busy trying to stay alive than keeping count of how many "tank kills" they did

rancid pitts My respect to you sir. I also served in Croatia (ZNG), Bosnia and Kosovo (British Army) and , most recently, Syria (YPG). Lost ALOT of guys in Syria, wasn’t nice. Yep, keeping score of kills is primarily the remit of WOT gaymers , the target audience for these video. There’s no real interest in the experience of the soldiers involved, except when it comes to “debunking “ “ myths” ( because, y’know, that’s investigative journalism, right!?). Honestly , you’d think WW2 had just been discovered the way it goes on, I guess since they don’t read books anymore they have to get their information from somewhere.. Just be aware that all Veterans have PTSD, and are therefore unreliable witnesses. Also, soldiers always complain and whinge..You’d best leave it to the youtube experts to tell you how it really went down... Sarcasm aside, what I learnt was this,.. my Grandfather went through all four years of WW1 , reaching the rank of RSM in only four years. Now I have at least some sketchy understanding of what that might mean. He later suffered from depression of course, hardly surprising.

Quite possibly they did not want to remember details. Or they did too vividly and kept it to themselves. Bill Mauldin came up with a fictitious society in Up Front. The Society of Them's That Been Shot At. It had members from every army. Plus, be it tanker, dogface or pilot. You are only as good as your last engagement.

andrew woodhead youtube has nothing to do with being an expert or not. same with books. you can not say yourube is always wrong and books are always right. science is not that easy.

Which as a historian is his job description. If an author discards facts to fit his opinion he is a historical novelist at best. At least that's honest. But with history the truth is often muddled. Details get lost. The people who might have known what happened in a certain instance quite simply aren't there minutes or seconds later. The same event seen from multiple viewpoints can have wildly different descriptions.

I know a lot of so-called historians who are biaised even though they claim they aren't and probably think so, too.

@@SNOUPS4 This guy's work is worth reading.

@@SNOUPS4 All historians are biased, TIK talks about this.

@@noodled6145 all historians are to an extent biased but that does not disqualify their works because of the said bias. the job of a historian is to take a bunch of accounts and try to paint a clear picture as possible. as long as the historian is doing that and is being peer-reviewed then there is no need to mention bias.

Well said

@Mists & Shadows You're forgetting one thing or not mentioning it when you speak of the German kill ratios. By the time the US showed up Germany was fighting a defensive war. Its long been held that you need a 5-1 manpower advantage when attacking a defensive position to have a chance of success without horrific casualties. That fact alone can account for much of the German kill ratio. I do not take anything away from the German's success during Poland, France, or the first part of the Soviet invasion. They used tech and tactics and rolled them up.

David Irving did exactly this for several decades. His honest history got him labeled an anti-semite. Amazing how they treat him like a traitor for putting the truth out without spin.

@@kalvinhill5308 Irving? He just lied a little bit. That should be acceptable to Nazis ...

@@snipersl270 wrong. military doctrine for mechanized and infantry at the time was 3:1 to overtake a defensive position.

of course not. they lost the war, lost pretty much 95% of tanks, produced during the war. they were beaten. who on earth would count fighting a lost war already from 1942?

@@andrebas1124 wouldn't have mattered if they won. Did the Soviet tankers keep a running contest going? The Ace concept comes from early fighter jocks being semi-aristocrats or ex cavalry officers who have a cavalier and sporting attitude.

Yeah, it was WW2 is not WoT.

The only reason to "Keep score" in war is for the intel purpose.

@@andrebas1124 they almost only keep score for Intel. On the rare occasions, sporting. War is not a sport It's an Art

Me too! They make a lovely couple don't they. I can't wait until they get hitched!

Your right the count was much much higher for the German tank aces. Well done debunking The Aces for the Bolshevik properganda machine comrads🚩! loyalty for loyalty, When all others become unfaithful.

That's incredibly enlightening. Very believable and interesting too.

A single-seat pilot, when I asked him how many he shot down said I suppose I could claim one half, if I was pushed to it.

Then explain all the kill counts painted on WW2 aircraft by both Axis and Allied "Experte"?

@@SARGE11963 Just read again: a) in HIS unit because the prince got all the kill credits. b) he himself was no expert. As you might know, German pilots only became "Experten" at about 30-40 kills. Until that they were considered rookies or wingmen at best. Check out WW2 photos and look for kill marks on German aircraft. They were actually rare except for the "Experten".

@@ottovonbismarck2443 for all I know it was basically standing procedure in German fighter units to let the resident "Ace" have the kill shot, where tactically possible

The Chiefs agreed to not speak of the true killer of Custer for a hundred years to avoid retaliation. Can you imagine the uproar if the truth was told at the time, that Custer was killed by a woman. Buffalo Calf Road Woman was the one who ended Custer.

@thatkidwiththehair couldn't agree more, his battle storm stalingrad right now is great. David Glantz is a great historian as well, I really respect the man's work, and gives TiK even more credibility that he's used as a source. Try Stephen Kotkin if your intrested in the eastern front of WW2. Cheers

Look up Mark Felton Productions.

Even if those specific examples are based on exaggeration there is no doubt tank aces exist, as the gaussian distribution applies to any activity that involves human skill. Just like there are exceptional sportsmen or exceptional chess players or exceptional drivers, there most certainly have also been exceptional tankers, pilots or marksmen.

What about Marseille? His claims got cross checked and found to have two unclear cases among over 100. How can you tell if that "adding" the kills wasn't a rare event?

@@etwas013 Chris Shores, a well known aviation historian (and I might add THE comprehensive historian of the Western Desert/North African Air War) calculated that HJM's total vics were about 100 so around 70% accuracy which was incredibly good under the circumstances. In some cases he only damaged the fighter he attacked but called it a 'vic' because he felt he WAS 'that good' (and often he was but not always) and in other cases there were other JG27, or JG53 or even Italian aces involved in the fight who may have claimed the same aircraft-and under those circumstances who gets the credit? They ALL did.

@@nickmitsialis Hm. About 150 claims and about 100 accredited. You might be right. My estimate is wrong. Only two doubtful claims would be unrealistic anw.

@@baraka629 I think you mean a normal distribution and that is absolutely not proven. You're assuming that this is the case but such assumptions are often made without any proof that they are real, it might be relatively simple to prove such a distribution maps athletic performance relatively well but first off that's a simple thing to measure, which tanking isn't, and thirdly we also have to ask whether or not we're actually just measuring how much time people put into say sport. Given that we live in a world where unless people willingly spend time training they wont get much physical activity and of course if you don't train as much as a professional athlete you wont be as good as them. But we might not obtain such data if we instead measured a group of hunter gatherers where everyone gets plenty of exercise. Basically the only reason why a normal distribution appears for stuff like this might just be because we live in a society where people specialize and you can't specialize in everything and not because such a distribution is inherent to humans. And well especially with war it's honestly probably a lot more likely that the people who did well at tanking were probably just lucky to survive for long enough not that they were inherently better.

When you see the masses of T34 - T60's - KV1's shot down! I don't get the vulnerable kill. Yes maybe the 10 Shermans against one Panther!

@Chris_Wooden_Eye Well and then tanks are even worse than planes in terms of even figuring out kills. If a plane strikes the ground violently, somebody killed it unless it was pilot error (which in all likelihood will still be considered a "maneuver kill, which may or may not be fair). If a plane goes straight down on fire, that's very likely a kill. If it is smoking and going straight down, probable. Even then, things get messy, as multiple pilots may have scored hits against the same plane, possibly knowing and possibly not knowing that other pilots had hit it, so the same downed plane might be counted as 3 kills but each pilot thought it was probably dead after they hit it but had to quickly focus their attention on another plane. But tanks are a mess. Unless the whole thing explodes, you don't know what's working and what is not, or how much crew is alive. So you can sit there pummeling the same tank, pretty confident it couldn't have survived, only for it to take a sneaky kill on one of your allies, and you have no idea they ever did that. Alternative, in fear of the prior situation, you can sit there pummeling a tank to be extra sure even though your first shot knocked out the crew. But you have no way of knowing. You can see if you took out the tracks for a mobility kill, but that's about as comfortable a kill as can be claimed short of the whole thing exploding.

101jir and the opposite is true as well. You might see an abandoned hulk at a distance, assume it is a mobile tank, put a round into it and see that is isn’t moving and consider it a kill

maybe the guy he called regrets killing 300 men ? it happens all the time

Ran out of chalk

M.W was shellshocked and he's men were shook up and he had to be point man with his tiger no doubt he was scared but be had a job to do

Thank god

Genau.

It's hard to reckon a tank kill. There are 3 different kill states. 1. Mobility kill. Track fucked up, tank is now stuck. Think you blew off a drive sprocket. 2. Mission kill. Tank is now too damaged to accomplish its goal. Think you jammed the traverse, destroyed the targeting system, hurt the crew members, or caught it on fire and forced its abandonment. 3. Catastrophic kill. BOOOOOOOOM! Turret popped off and bits strewn yards away. This is what is most people think is the archetypical kill. 2 out of 3 types of "kills" have a tank that is still technically functional, just damaged, and with a crew all or mostly alive. With repairs for the vehicle, and maybe some medical attention or a replacement if even needed, the tank and crew will be back at work in no time. So it's fully possible and very common for a tank to be "killed", but not killed as in vehicle and crew completely destroyed. Example: Kurtschen sees a hostile tank moving. His tank engages it. It's a hit. It stops moving. That's a kill, a mobility kill. The track's thrown, but the rest is fine and the crew is fine. Kurtschen and his guys drive off along on their mission. They could report a kill, but they don't know that the tank ultimately got patched up by the crew and was back in the fight later. Kurtschen reports a kill, the Germans report a kill, the Soviets either report nothing or a breakdown. And that's why it's pretty much impossible to tell real kill counts and losses with tanks.

I was a soldier, and soldiers make after action reports, commanders used to record the activities of their units in combat, sometimes in a war diary, the US submitted actual reports. There are many military historians who have focused on specific units or commanders or battles, and dug through the reports that have been found, diaries or other books published, and put together the best records available. It would seem that some of these historians are less careful in their research.

@@Mortablunt The Soviets would actually have counted that tank as a kill but that's more a technicality. They didn't differentiate between whether a tank was just temporarily out of action or if it was completely destroyed since to them either way it meant that in the tactical situation one less tank was available. That's also how you sometimes get over 100% loses for Soviet units.

@@piperp9535 The Germans and Soviets had some level of it, but arguably they were less extensive, and in the case for the Germans some of the files have been lost to history.

Is TiK a reliable YT historian? Any comments?

Panzerreichus Holzer So on the military history stuff he’s pretty good I’d say, just keep in mind that he thrives on arguing points. MHV has a different tone and approach, but both seem committed to providing a clearer picture on (primarily) WW2 topics that are accessible to the masses. TiK has particular views on economics that come into his videos, and I sometimes feel these points don’t meet the same standards he has for the military history. That’s my opinion ofc. Still, he painstakingly breaks down battles with well drawn out maps, but it takes less energy for me to intellectually digest MHV’s content. Kurowski seems to be problematic in everyone’s view though.

TiK really shines in his documentary series about battles like n africa, courland or now stalingrad, and made some interesting videos about other subjects (like people or past historians underestimating the importance of oil for germany) But don t watch his political videos. Like really. They are not good. He has more knowledge about the subject than your average voter but he isn t a reliable source for politics. His views can be really felt. He messes up with old debunked theories. He feels like he was "lied to" by the mostly incorrect public narrative about subjects and goes rogue. His documentaries? Amazing. His other videos? He speaks his mind for half on hour. If it is history it is usually correct if it is politics not so much.

@@panzerreichusholzer9239 is not rely reliable. He use mainly (only ?) secondary sources, that mean anyone who can read can have the same thought and argument. Sometimes, when the books he used are good his video can be good. But for exemple, his Kurland videos are full of error, the red army is pourly shown, not enough book on the subject i guess.

Panzerreichus Holzer don't listen to the haters, TIK is phenomenal and definitely worth a look, but as TIK would say check it out yourself and don't take others opinion of it as fact. TIK cares about the facts though FYI.

Well the USA were the "good guys" in this war. But it doesn't mean every single soldier in front of them is a war criminal. (But in the wermacht they were a lot)

Americans and French were barbaric to German POWs after the war. In their sectors over a million POWs needlessly died of exposure and starvation from the end of the war until 1948 until growing outrage and vehement protest from the British intervened. And that isn't neo-Nazi revisionist bs, it's well-documented by serious historians. Funny how you don't hear much about it. The Soviets weren't the only ones guilty of a brutal victor's justice. Killing prisoners in the heat of battle, or when men can't be spared to guard prisoners, or when you don't have resources, etc., though horrific, happened on all sides (Canadians after the Normandy shot any Waffen-SS or Fallschirmjaeger prisoners out of hand, and I heard that first hand from many, many Canadian vets just as an example). But after hostilities have ended, well, that's a war crime of a completely different nature.

@@aimformyheadplease that's fake and gay

@@weld546 No, it isn't, though I'm not at all surprised you'd think so, as how could such a horrible crime not have ever hit our collective radars? If you want to find out for yourself rather than just saying "that's fake and gay", read Giles MacDonogh's "After the Reich", or James Bacque's "Other Losses", both highly respected and distinguished historians whose research is impeccable, probably the two best books on the subject of the systematic American and French war-crimes post-war all under Eisenhower's supervision (again, it wasn't just the Soviets that went on a post-war tear, though the 2,000,000 ethnic Germans they either killed or stood aside as others did were civilians, mostly women and children); as an aside, you have read what FDR had planned and what would have happened if he hadn't passed away, no? It would have made the deaths of those million German POWs look tame. BTW, no need to be rude just because you're confronted with information that challenges your preconceived notions. Do your own research, you will be shocked, I know I was.

the blue penguin A former Fallschirmjager I once knew (Kurt Berg) and his friend were very lucky in this respect. They had been cornered in the cellar of an old lady somewhere in the Low Countries. He said, that if it had not been for her pleading for their lives they would have been shot there and then!

Another good point about the crews. Counting kills by planes or tanks is messy, but in addition to the point you made about crews it is a lot harder to determine if a tank is destroyed than a plane in most cases.

@@101jir Yeah, it seems like they would confirm or at least had info about the other sides plane losses, I might be confusing that practice in WW1 for one in WW2, but the planes have gun cameras as well where tanks dont. On the ground who takes the field matters

@@WarReport. Gun cameras were indeed WWII

@@101jir Yes I know, I meant the reports from the enemy losses

@@WarReport. Oh, okay. Idk about that.

True that is the sad reality.

in medieval times it is likely they measured success on ransoms. they prefured to capture nobles and richer peasants (and sometimes even normal peasants) and ransom them back, which made alot of money. that and taking control of land, castles and being the one to hold the field of battle at the end of the day.

The dude mostly wrote pulp, when he wasn't writing sensationalism or apologetics.

TiK's ears perk up

As stated some did care, some did not care. Counter-question how many photos of tanks you see with no stripes? So I guess they never destroyed anything or how you explain that? Also keep in mind in many cases those photos are from propaganda units as well.

@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized Michael Wittmann was a tank ace who , would end up with a Tiger 1

Sorry, I did not clarify, I speak a dialect of German from 200 years ago.

most allied tank aces claimed between 10 and 30 kills. granted the germans were fighting shit tanks in russia in 1941, early russian and british tank tactics in north africa were rather dumb (bumb rushing any enemy tanks they saw) plus being on the defensive is always an advantage. so its to be expected that the germans should have higher kill counts (if they counted)

And the best Soldat with a shovel was *THE ACE OF SPADES, THE ACE OF SPADES!*

Aces! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SpnIXzXV_tc.html

Kurowski was not a historian. He just wrote a lot of books. He got no time for making some researching.

hell 30 is impressive

Just being in the tank is even more impressive

@@fulcrum2951 To be a bit blunt: if you want to really understand, you have to stop kissing khaki. It doesn’t take a superman to get into a tank. Once you’re in it, where you end up is out of your control. I spent most of the first 30 years of my life talking to old soldiers. They told me things they never to,d anyone else and they were all carrying a massive sense of guilt.

Daniel Gjörwell Clearly you weren’t paying attention or understood the reason behind this video. The majority didn’t count their kills NOT lost count. Your the kind of person who stokes misinformation and glamorises war.

You're an ace when you excel compared to the rest of the army. It was typical for the Wehrmacht tank crews to kill a big number of soviet tanks. This is just what happens if you figth against an less trained enemy that always have the numerical advantage over you. Even with the few commanders who counted their kills I highly doubt their numbers. In great scale engagement it is hard to tell who made kills. Their are maybe more than one gun shooting at the same target and I imagine that a tank commander in combat has more important things to do than making a knit list.

@@frankanderson5012 The majority didn't count their kills but some did. And some lost count after a while. Those are aces no? Most airmen didn't count kills either but there are fighter aces aren't there? The fact that a person can excel in warfare does NOT glamorize war.

"Most airmen didn't count kills either but there are fighter aces aren't there" How did command know if they were aces if they didn't count their kills? You are just right wing incel idiot how say shit that only suits his own agenda, not facts. Crawl back in your room..... Nazi-fanboy looser.

@@ludaMerlin69 @ Triggered little snowflake who loves to call people, who have different opinions from him, leftist, got butt-hurt by my comment. Good, i'm glad my comment triggered you. That little emoji prove's it.

TIK is a hack.

@@Ikarias1 Well it's good that you also provided sources to prove that

Jan P. - I suppose you think these guys are hacks as well

@@abecadlo15 I don't know if he is a hack but I remember some video he went on a crazy libertarian speel and his knowledge of politicial theory was awful so I would be sceptical if things he says in that regard.

His history is OK

but if u are forced? :(

@@bololollek9245 git gut

That's sort of a myth. If you look at the tank ace Wittman, he went up against the British in the town of Villers Bocage. He, for the most part, destroyed about 20 tanks in 15 minutes. There were tanks that couldn't have penetrated the Tiger, but there were also Sherman Firefly's that could and he destroyed a couple of those. Brits had piat anti tank bazookas that could destroy a Tiger as well.

you might want to return it ;)

@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized Some people I know regard it as a good "story." So hey, it might be a good read.

@@peterson7082 stories are importand too. I read a fascinating autobiography about a german soldier on the eastern front, but felt like it was exagerated a bit much. Still a nice read.

@@henkgerritsen1444 Forgotten Soldier? by Guy Sajer Drafted in 1942 when 16 years old, French father German mother trained and then assigned to a supply unit eventually volunteered for the Gross Deutschland. He wrote the book as a memoir and was an became and artist after the war. A veteran of the G.D. at first thought the author made up much of the story but after visiting him and talking with him concluded the author was telling the truth based on his memory. Which means that some of the stuff he reported could be wrong or inaccurate but it was how he remembered it. One thing that made the other veteran suspicious was when Sajer remarked about getting to add the G.D. cuff band to his uniform specified the wrong arm.

Which are still absolutely insane numbers, to be honest.

Those numbers are "at most". They couldn't tell whether the enemy was destroyed, repaired or whatever.

Only 60 to 70 kills..... Is it me, or is that still a hell of a lot of tanks??

60 to 70 is what they considered kills, not actual kills. They couldn't tell if that that was repaired in less than 24 hours and put into service the next day. It's impossible to know. And considering they didn't shoot a tank was already knocked out by somebody else.

I mean honestly knocking out 60 or 100 tanks is still pretty impressive

Yeah, definitely. I first noticed that on war gaming forums back in 2006 or so, and it's only grown from there.

Wonder how attribution could be done when combined arms are deployed? Especially with the western allies, who had air assets, field artillery, tanks, tank destroyers, etc. ... and even the Germans - ok, not much of an air force by mid-1944 - still had artillery, antitank guns, mines, and eventually panzerfausts and what not. Seems with things going off all over the place that keeping count would be hard, unless a gunner managed a direct hit on an opponent and saw the tank get destroyed (by explosion, fire, etc.), and then survived to tell?

@@michaeldunne338 it is problematic for sure, but I will concede that the the Germans did paint kill rings on their guns....

@@terraflow__bryanburdo4547 But were they accurate in their accounting (and by guns, do you mean the field artillery folks, or those in AFVs)? Seems stuff around operations research was more an endeavor pursued by the Allies (because they were advancing and had access to battlefields?), and it seems such studies produced surprises (like the Typhoons not being such a nemesis of Panzers at Mortain).

As far as I know he threatened to mow down an SS squad that was about to execute noncombatants. A shame he didn't survive. He is the good guy Greg of tank warfare.

Lol I thought you meant Kurt knispel. I better learn to read properly.

@@AllisterCaine lol, knispel is a great guy though to

Daddy Töppel

@@AllisterCaine They said that didn't happen in this video.

> As an old soldier I view the whole "aces" thing, regardless of vehicle, as purely the creation of an observer-historian; I would change "observer-historian" to something more akin to "snake-oil salesman", "hog washer", etc.