Common History Myths: Historical Inevitability Edition

EnsignExpendable, on Jun 29 2014 - 05:01, said: Myth: Belton Cooper's book "Death Traps" is a good book about the Sherman. Fact: Belton Cooper was a mechanic during the war, and thus lacked a good overall perspective of the Sherman's performance. His laments about Shermans being no good against Tigers and Panthers are questionable, as his unit did not encounter Tigers and Panthers when he said it did. Furthermore, a portion of his book is dedicated to a rant about a Yankee conspiracy when it came to naming the tank, despite the fact that "Sherman" was a British nickname. The American designation was "Medium Tank M4".  


Quote Myth: JFC Fuller and Liddell Hart were the true prophets of Blitzkrieg and that German theorists borrowed heavily from their writings in formulating the doctrines that would carry the Wehrmacht through their early victories.


Quote Myth: The SS were an elite fighting force, especially their armoured divisions.


Quote Myth: The Elephant was a fantastic AT platform that individually could claim more than 10 kills per TD lost   Fact: The Elephant may very well exemplify the issue with German manufacturing in that era. Porsche was so convinced he'd win the contract for the Tiger heavy tank that he had over 100 of his Porsche Tiger produced before the contract was ever signed- which of course went to Henshel because while their design wasn't reliable, it was at least less unreliable than Porsche's tank. Left with these tanks no one wanted, Porsche was able to find someone gullible enough to believe they need to mount the PaK43 to the Tiger, and that the way to do it was with the Porsche leftovers and it'd be mounted in a fixed housing. Weighing in at 65 tons it could only manage 19 MPH top. Replacement parts for the vehicles were rare because of the fact that fewer than 100 were ever built.


Quote Myth: Germans could knock out Allied tanks at great ranges, and routinely did so from distances as great as 2 kilometers or even greater.
Fact: Research indicates that the average engagement range was only several hundred meters. Shots from over 1 kilometer were either rarely taken, or rarely reached their target.


Quote Myth: The King Tiger could not be penetrated by any tank gun.
Fact: The Tiger II was penetrated many times by various weapons in trials. Even the meek 85 mm gun on the T-34-85 was capable of dealing a fatal blow to it at 300 meters. The Wikipedia article for the Tiger II has a very nice photo of a Tiger II with a 17 pounder hole in the front.