Monday 2 February 2015

Cheating at Statistics 10: Liars at Lisow

There is a Russian saying, "fear has large eyes", meaning that when you are already afraid, everything you see becomes even more fearsome. MS-1s become T-34s, BT-7s become T-34s, T-26es become KVs. During the Vistula-Oder Offensive, a similar event happened. First, the German version of events, from Schneider's Tigers in Combat:

"13 January 1945: New direction of attack is Lisow.
...
The battalion is ambushed by Josef Stalin tanks and hidden antitank guns in Lisow and is almost completely destroyed. The battalion commander's tank is also knocked out. The desperately fighting Tigers destroy 50-60 enemy tanks on that day."

At least three whole regiments of IS-2 tanks plus a hidden battery of AT guns! That is definitely a fearsome force required to completely destroy a battalion of Tiger IIs. However, seeing as how this is part 10 in this series of articles, it's a bit premature to take these figures as gospel truth. Let's take a look at Aleksei Isayev's lecture on the Vistula-Oder Offensive. He covers this episode starting at 21:10.

"Isayev: ...there was an episode where a heavy tank battalion armed with King Tigers attacked at Lisow. They were stopped by a tank brigade with T-34-85s. Practically all T-34 tanks by the start of the Vistula-Oder operation were armed with 85 mm guns and could face German heavy tanks almost as equals. There was a paradoxical situation where the Germans thought they were fighting IS tanks, Joseph Stalin, and destroyed 50 IS tanks, and the Soviet tank brigade, Fomichev's brigade, thought they were fighting not heavy tanks, but normal Panthers. In the after action reports...

Varshavchik: So one side overclaimed and the other underclaimed?

Isayev: Yes, it turns out that the Germans, who performed poorly, as their heavy tank battalion was destroyed, they overclaimed, told a tale of 50 destroyed IS tanks, but in reality they destroyed maybe 20-30 T-34-85s. The Soviet side, having destroyed a fresh heavy tank battalion, just wrote "some Panthers attacked us, we shot them up, we kept driving further.""

A Soviet tank brigade in 1945 consisted of 65 T-34-85 tanks. As far as the artillery battery the Germans envisioned, a brigade only carried 4 45 mm guns and 6 82 mm mortars, hardly a powerful adversary for Tiger tanks. The fresh German battalion (the diary lists its numbers at 51 operational tanks on December 21st, and does not list any losses until January 13th) was destroyed by a T-34-85 unit with a negligible numerical advantage that did not even realize what they were fighting.

16 comments:

  1. Fomichev's 63rd Guards Tank Brigade of 65 T-34/85s was part of the 10th Guards Tank Corps. As such it could count on support from the 356th Guards SU Regiment, 357th Guards Antitank Regiment, 299th Guards Mortar Regiment, 62nd Guards Antitank Battalion, and 248th Guards Mortar Battalion Regiment.
    -m

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    1. And s.Pz.Abt. 501 could count on support from the entire XXIV Panzer-Korps, right?

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  2. The truth will set you free.

    "IS-2 vehicles, most likely from the 13th Heavy Tank Regiment, skirmished with the Tigers from 424 sHPzAbt near Lisow. The advancing Tigers were greeted by powerful and accurate fire from tanks and ant-tank weapons. The armor, made from lower quality steel (due to problems with raw materials) could not withstand the 122mm, 25 kilogram projectiles and the attack broke down. The battalion commander, Major Saemisch was killed and numerous tanks were lost."

    Kielce 1945" by Norbert Baczyk.
    -m

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    1. There was never a unit called "13th Heavy Tank Regiment". If he's talking about 13th Guards Independent Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment, it was armed with IS-85s, not IS-122s.

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    2. Flames of War is not an original source but from their site on the 13th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment.

      In early 1944 it was assigned to the 2nd Tank Army after being re-equipped with new IS-85 heavy tanks where it saw fighting at Fastov Station.
      In July, after heavy fighting during the earlier part of the year, it was re-equipped with IS-2 heavy tanks. From December 1944 it was assigned to the 4th Guards Tank Army as a independent support regiment.

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    3. One regiment of IS tanks consists of 25 tanks, not from 60 like german claim that they destroyed arround 50 tanks. And tree heavy tanks regiments in the one ambush it sounds retarded.

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    4. Of course you and Peter don't read very well. The German report doesn't say how many of the 50-60 destroyed tanks were IS-2s. They could of been mostly or all T-34/85s. Only that IS-2s ambushed the Tigers and destroyed most. We found from other reports that the tactic of the IS-2 was to hang back and let the T-34s take the initial force of the fight.

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    5. Yes, but there weren't any IS-2s at all, and they didn't destroy 50-60 tanks, so the report is still 100% false.

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    6. 100%? So the Germans never fought that day no one got in a tank everyone slept in?

      It would seem that there were at least some IS tanks wither 122 or 85 is debatable.

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    7. Why are you so sure that there were IS tanks when Isayev explicitly says there were no IS tanks and nobody can come up with an IS tank unit they could have fought? There could not have been "some" IS tanks assigned to a T-34-85 unit, that's not how the Red Army was organized.

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    8. He just dont believe that T34-85 should knock Tiger II. Before they opened fire they could send some tanks to flank enemy tank formation and put them to the crossfire. While Tiger II front armour is impenetrable for ZIS 53, its side can be overcame at 2000 m at the best angle and still at the 25 deg. angle from 600 m.

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    9. "He just dont believe that T34-85 should knock Tiger II"
      And where was this stated in my post? I have an issue with the way this was presented and how the German claim was misrepresented in the article... I also question the validity of such a definitive statement as definitive statements are not very valid in the front lines as this article tries to prove with the German account...

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    10. How was the German claim misrepresented? It's verbatim from Schneider's book. You can go read it yourself if you want. I don't see how you can possibly make a case for misrepresentation.

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    11. Probably misedentifaction of T-34/85 as IS-2, after all, they had similar shapes rounded turrets. Just the same the Soviet side seemed to mis-ID Tiger Bs for Panthers, the liars.

      Long story short, a green Tiger unit runs into an ambush by a brigade of T-34, who have the advantage, and looses, while the Soviet losses were still rather considerable. The old problem of knocked out tank (which the Germans reported) vs those repaired and returned to duty remains, and as usual our friend makes a huge fuss about it.

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    12. You're missing the part where they claimed twice as many kills as they actually scored, plus they invented an AT gun battery to boot. That is an old problem, yes, which is why this article is #10 in the series :)

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  3. so this should read liars of Achieve awareness? -:-)
    But seriously the title chosen for this article is in poor taste.

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