Top Tiger I commanders by # of kills?

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Imad
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Post by Imad »

michael kenny wrote:The list of 'kills' used to compile the ace list is the raw figure BEFORE the reductions were applied.
OK thanks for clarifying. And this was different from the Allied system?
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Post by Jan-Hendrik »

The list of 'kills' used to compile the ace list is the raw figure BEFORE the reductions were applied.
Sorry, Mike, taht's nonsense :roll:

There you mix up the kill claims reported by staffs to higher commands with the recognition of individual kills of crews which were only counted if they were confirmed by at least their KpChef....no confirmation, no Abschuß ...

By the way, as Tigers were too often only employed in small number, platoon level, to help the infantery I rather tend to say the numbers above are only the lowest esteminations, as there was too often no one around to confirm individual kills (witnesses byID-Officers did not count in this system)...

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Post by michael kenny »

Jan-Hendrik wrote:

There you mix up the kill claims reported by staffs to higher commands with the recognition of individual kills of crews which were only counted if they were confirmed by at least their KpChef....no confirmation, no Abschuß ...
Then how did Wittmann get credited with 20+ kills for Villers Bocage when he never even saw that many Allied tanks?
How did Will Fey get credited with 16 Shermans in one engagement?
Why is there no mention of Barkmann's action in any US account?
Perhaps you can give me an example where Higher Command claimed say 100 destroyed tanks and Unit 'X' said sorry but we only got 50?
Are you saying that the kills reported by individual crews were not counted and instead Staff Officers made their own estimates?
Better than that give me all the daily/weekly/monthly/claims for '503' and I will try to check the UK records and see just how good this confirmation system were.


By the way, as Tigers were too often only employed in small number, platoon level, to help the infantery I rather tend to say the numbers above are only the lowest esteminations, as there was too often no one around to confirm individual kills (witnesses byID-Officers did not count in this system)...
And the evidence for this underclaim would be confirmed by German claims being lower than actual losses I suppose. An example where this happened would be useful.
At the end of the day total German to Allied tank losses for Normandy were lower than 2:1 in the German favour.

(Cue for excuses as to why German tank losses should be reduced to alter this ratio................)
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Post by Jan-Hendrik »

Sorry, Mike , yoi are still mixing up the different levels :wink:

Your point of "claim reduce"..ever reflected why this was done (and when)?

If the enemy was, even if he got hard hit, in most cases the one who gained the batllefield after the fight, as it was on Eastern Front usual after Summer 1943, does it really surprises you that higher staffs took it in estimantion that more than 50% of the reported Abschüsse could be recovered after the Battleby the enemy forces? Abschuss is not "total writeoff", and that's why your number will never match :wink:

What and how the Waffen-SS did to create their mystical super heroes is not a point of my interest of my research, as this topic begins to bore me to death :roll:

So please stop to use this silly "kill"-terms as it misleads 100% in this discussiion (and, as we both know, there are enough around who are willingly out to jump on this "train to nowhere " :roll: ).

Little nitpicking: shooting on burnt out wrecks were definitly not taken into account for confirmed Abschüsse, at least not with the german Heer :D :D :D

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Post by michael kenny »

Jan-Hendrik wrote:What and how the Waffen-SS did to create their mystical super heroes is not a point of my interest of my research, as this topic begins to bore me to death
The system was the same for SS and Heer and in that example the system clearly got the total wrong (by coincidence about 50% wrong)
It is a cast iron example where the 'only confirmed kills' claim clearly was wrong by a large margin.
So please stop to use this silly "kill"-terms as it misleads 100% in this discussiion (and, as we both know, there are enough around who are willingly out to jump on this "train to nowhere

I have never used any of these silly 'ace' tables in any of my posts.
This is the first time I have seen you say that it is not a confirmed kill in any of these Ace threads. It bores me to death that these absurd totals are bandied about and claimed to be 100% checked and confirmed in all respects. I know they are not kills because I found examples where they clearly bore no relation to actual losses.
If it is a mobility kill that counts then the Tiger Abteilung in Normandy can be claimed as several hundred 'kills' by Allied tankers. Do you agree with that?
Just for the record you now say this list is not 'kills' but hit and damaged (some of which were repaired) tanks:


Kurt Knispel 168 kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503
Otto Carius 150+ kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502
Johannes (Hans) Bolter 139+ kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502
Michael Wittman 138 kills schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101
Paul Egger 113 kills schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 102
Arno Giesen 111 kills 8./SS-Panzerregiment 2
Heinz Rohndorf 106 kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503
Heinz Gartner 103 kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503
Karl Koener 100+ kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503
Albert Kerscher 100+ kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502
Balthazar (Bobby) Woll 100+ kills schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101
Helmut Wendorff 84 kills schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101
Will Fey 80+ kills schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 102
Eric Litztke 76 kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 509
Wilhelm Knauth 68 kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 505
Karl Bromann 66 kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503
Konrad Weinert 59 kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503
Karl Heinz Warmbrunn 57 kills schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101
Heinz Kling 51 kills schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101
Heinz Kramer 50+ kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502
Alfredo Carpaneto 50+ kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502
Oberleutnant Mausberg 50+ kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 505
Johann Muller 50 kills schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502
Jurgen Brandt 47 kills schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101
Franz Staudegger 22+ kills schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101

and as '503' had only 9 out of an original 39 Tigers is service on the night of 18/7/44 then we should deduct the bomb damaged total (say 10) and award the Allies tankers up to 20 Tiger 'kills' that day?

Little nitpicking: shooting on burnt out wrecks were definitly not taken into account for confirmed Abschüsse, at least not with the german Heer
Who claimed burnt out wrecks as kills?
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Post by Jan-Hendrik »

Well, Mike, that is trying to beat the fog :D :D

As I already stated before, a confirmed Abschuß is what in modern terms would be a mission kill :wink:

By the way, what the allies did or not did is not my point of interest, that's up to you to judge about it or not :wink:


And by the other way ( :wink: ), that is the first time I see a possibilty for a constructive discussion on this point :wink:

If you find a perfect answer I would be happy, I can only tell what I was able to find out due to my research. And the "usual" discussions on those topics around here are seldem enough based on research...


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Re: Top Tiger I commanders by # of kills?

Post by Jan-Hendrik »

Heinz Rondorf at PA :wink:

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Re: Arno Giesen was a Fraud, says his son Bo Friesen.

Post by Doug Nash »

A generation ago, the name "Arno Giesen" would have been instantly recognizable to anyone studying the Waffen-SS in the early 1980s. A man who touted himself as the commander of the "last SS tank in Vienna," Giesen convinced many of us (including junior armor officers such as myself) that he was the real deal. He was a popular speaker on the US Army Professional Development circuit until he was finally exposed for what he was - a fraud, but not after maligning a number of genuine Waffen SS veteans, such as Fritz Langanke and Ernst Barkmann. Here's a very recent article by his son, Bo Friesen, who wrote about his father's colorful career as a storyteller and a textbook example of German "Stolen Valor."
http://fathercodersoldierspy.com/?page_id=9
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