So true! And the Germans had a harder time making their over-engineered equipment work. Kudo's to those maintenance crews that made that equipment work for the country that they served.
Maybe in North Africa, but not once the heavier tanks started making an appearance. It took more than a single big half-track to tow a Panther or a Tiger, and the Germans never developed an armoured recovery vehicle with capabilities similar to the American M32 TRV, or a tank transporter like the M25 "Dragon Wagon" (the tractor of which could handle a Panther by itself, and probably Tiger too).
The Germans had great trouble repairing their vehicles and replacing them in time because they shipped all of the more serious cases back to Germany for repair and rework at the factory, instead of having dedicated tank repair workshops some way behind the front like the Allies used. Very enlightening is reading passages from reports by PzJ Ferdinand units in Russia in Schwere Jagdpanzer by Spielberger, Doyle and Jentz, where the reports continually complain about the inability to get any work done because of having to find suitable buildings (factories etc.) themselves — ones not already used by other units at that — and then, just when they've set up shop, the order coming to pull out again because of the Russian advance.
I think that just about sums it up, pretty hard to be efficient when you are on the back foot!
Right!^^^I would go back and instead, collect paint chips of olive drab, dark yellow, panzer grey, and more
Too much work
I don't mind the occasional one, but the interior adds at least as much work again to the model as for the outside, and I already finish fewer models than I would like …Too much work
I don't mind the occasional one, but the interior and undercarriage add at least as much work again to the model as for an equivalent tracked vehicle, and I already finish fewer models than I would like …
Not quite
Nazi Germany was a very odd type of state: on the one hand, it espoused socialist (in the real meaning of that term, not the modern American one) values, but on the other, it was strongly capitalist in giving the large industrialists and major commercial companies pretty much anything they wanted in return for their support. (That last bit was mostly pragmatism on Hitler's part, and one of the reasons why people like Röhm had to go once the NSDAP was firmly in power.)
Nice post @Jakko . I agree more than I disagree.Not quite
American vehicle design was largely centralised, with the US government awarding contracts to companies to make the same basic design but often tailored to their specific abilities. Which is why, say, 2.5-ton truck all look similar but differ in their details, or why a dozen companies all produced Shermans tanks.
German tank design was initially centralised as well and worked much the same way, until they began doing competitive design for things like the Tiger and Panther, and then had the winning design built by several companies much as before. Where German procurement really differed from the American was in softskins: once the war was underway, they pretty much bought just about anything available in a slightly militarised form (much like the UK, in fact). Which greatly hampered logistics, and even such things as pushing stuck vehicles out of the mud … (because of unexpected issues like bumper heights varying widely between manufacturers).
