Hitler's experience of WWII tanks

Brack I'd suppose Google might be of help

What tanks do you allege there were in the run-up to the First World War?

This the kind of thing you talking about?



That's a British tank of World War I vintage,now on display at the Patton Tank Museum at Ft. Knox, Ky. Here's the Ft. Knox museum website:

http://www.knox.army.mil/PattonMuseum/index.htm

You know, if the army ever needed an enema, they would stick it right in the middle of beautiful Ft. Knox, Kentucky.

I spent some time there in the early 1960s. Somewhere I think I still have a picture of myself (in uniform) standing next to that very same British tank...and a couple of other vintage tracked vehicles.

The OP seems a little confused between the first and second world wars

I'm not so sure. I think he's asking, did Hitler's run-ins with the earliest models of tanks during WW I cause him to place such value on his Panzers during WW II.

If by run-up to the war, you mean the second world war, Hitler had no experience of tanks that i know of. He had left Austria and joined the Bavarian army at the time of the first world war, and no tanks were used on the Bavarians' front. As for what tanks the Germans had in 1939-40, they were pretty inferior. The Panzer I mounted two machine guns, was powered by a gasoline engine (which means it lit up like a Christmas tree if it got hit). However, the French, who had much superior armored fighting vehicles, had spread their tanks out piecemeal to their infantry divisions, and then relied on the Maginot Line to defend their country. So the Germans got away with using the Panzer I, and even had an advantage with them because they could pull into a French gas station and fill up the tank.

The Panzer II was a better armed tank with a two centimeter gun as the main armament. It also used a gasoline engine, which the Germans were to learn to their cost condemned the crew to a fiery death if they were hit in the rear section of the vehicle. Although used in North Africa and the Soviet Union, it was never intended to be used as a main battle tank, and was replaced in 1940, after the invasion of France, by the Panzer III, which was itself superseded by the Panzer IV. All of the PzKpfw tanks were inferior to the Russian main battle tank, the T34, which was in production and use from 1940 to 1958. According to Wikipedia: German tank generals von Kleist and Guderian called it "the deadliest tank in the world."

The Tiger and Panther tanks were an attempt to deal with the T34--and a paltry attempt it was. The Germans built a few thousand of those tanks. The Russians built more than 70,000 T34s. THe Germans in Normandy used to say: "A Tiger can take out ten Sherman tanks before the Amis (the Americans) can get them--and the Amis always have at least eleven." The Americans built more than 50,000 Sherman tanks, before it was replaced by the Pershing tank late in the war. The Tiger and Panther tanks were "over-engineered," using far too many resources and subject to breakdowns in continuous use, making them high maintenance. They also tore up the roads, so they were used transported to the battlefield by railroad, which meant that as the war progressed after Normandy, when the Allies attained air supremacy, the German armored divisions were less and less able to keep up with maintenance, and were obliged to move at night and hide in the day time, waiting for the Allies to come to them.

All in all, despite the many myths about German armor, theirs was not a happy experience.

Hitler had the best tanks and then the Russians did.

The best tanks in the West in 1940 were the French tanks--they were far superior to the Panzer I or the Panzer II. But they weren't used effectively. The T-34 was in service from 1940 onward. It's a toss-up whether or not the Tiger can be considered superior, given the limitations on its use imposed by an overly complex design. Even if one stipulates that the Tiger tank was superior (which i don't), the cost of their manufacture in material terms and the many problems associated with deploying them effectively in the field made them no match for the Russians. At Stalingrad, the Russians were manufacturing tanks at the Krazny Octyabr tractor factory ("Red October") and driving them right out the door and into the battle.

All Russian armor were "wide-track," and all design specifications had to include the ability to move well on unimproved surfaces. All Russian aircraft were required to have short take-off and landing distances, and to be able to land and take off from unimproved surfaces. The Russians were prepared for conditions in the Soviet Union. The Germans were not.

By the way, without wishing to insult the author, i get really tired of people talking about Hitler rather than the Germans, or the army, or the navy, etc. Hitler had no part in the design and procurement of armored fighting vehicles, and had no influence on their use. As close as he came was in appointing the highest level responsible government officials. Hitler would not have known a good AFV design if it has bitten him in the ass. Hitler was an idiot, with the one skill of being a consummate gutter politician. That meant that he correctly judged Chamberlain's gutlessness. When old Neville got the heave-ho, Hitler didn't have a clue how to judge or to deal with Churchill, Roosevelt or Stalin.

The Russian T-34 as depicted on a postage stamp.

I quoted Guderian above for his opinion of the T-34. When German engineers went to Russia, armored corps officers begged them to "just make this tank for us!"

A better image. This one's on display at a French museum.

You'll notice an interesting feature on this tank if you look at the rear fenders. Those cylindrical thingies are containers for extra fuel. (All tanks at this time were powered by either gasoline or Diesel fuel). The Russian supply-lines were piss-poor, like everything else in the USSR, so the tanks carried extra fuel for refueling in the field. It was this Achilles' heel which made them woefully vulnerable to even small arms fire. A .50 cal. tracer bullet could penetrate that thin steel drum and set the whole shooting match on fire. The engine being gasoline-operated didn't make that much difference; engines could be sealed off by more steel housing. (American M-46s had gasoline-powered engines enclosed under a steel 'hood' or 'bonnet' that was approx. 6 inches of homogenized steel in thickness.) The vulnerable spot was this external storage of extra fuel. It made the Russian tanks far more vulnerable than German, America, British or French models.

OP here; I have spent years researching Hitler's involvement in the procurement of armoured vehicles so I have to disagree; I am just struggling to find the sources to back up an argument, which is why I posted here.

I wasn't confused; but definitely did not make it clear in the question what I really wanted to know. Apologies.

Meddling in procurement is not at all the same as being involved. Hitler constantly meddled in government contracts, usually so that his cronies could profit. When Speer replaced Todt as the minister of armaments in 1942, he found German production in a mess. One shift a day, no women in factories, consumer goods still being produced in massive amounts while war production lagged. There were about a half dozen responsible parties, and they wee as given to corruption and cronyism as was Hitler. Speer solved that problem by centralizing production under his own authority. He increasingly resisted Hitler's efforts to interfere in war production matters. The Gauleiters got around this by going to Hitler directly, so once again, Hitler's role in war production was that of a meddler who did little good and a great deal of harm.

I'm am heartily sick an tired of the cult of Hitler. He was an idiot who hastened Germany's defeat and increased the death and misery German soldiers and civilians suffered by his meddling. Hitler was the best friend the Allies had in Europe.

If you're ever in the South West of England a trip to the tank museum is a great day out. My little boy loved it, and you get free membership for a year.

http://www.tankmuseum.org/