obat36 East Germany

[mr_clark]

Hmm thanks for mentioning the typo
I was at my uncles house on christmas and he has a second production run version of the book and there you see it actually says T-72 in there...

I also talked to my grandpop again.
It seems they actually tested T-62 near Stendal in the late 1970s, seems they got em directly from the soviets shipped over just for that. Seems they were quite happy about that tank and there were even some typed up for purchase but that was cancelled when the actualy order for T-72s went out 81.
"Funny" thing is he was quite sure about it when we discussed it all when helped a little for an earlier SPMBT build, even claimed he has seen upgraded variants, but that then might have been T-72s or something.

Until the 1973 my Grandpa was Batallion CO in the "Erzgebirge" near the FRG/GRD/CZ border.
After that he was in "Wehrbezirkskommando" Potsdam responsible for the seciton regarding mobilization of regulars and reserves, and then then from 1982-87 he was first assistant Chief of Staff and then Chief of Staff for the whole Kommando.
Apart from that my uncle's did spend their three years in the mid 80s and my father was in the border guards until 'the end'... Was even scheduled for duty in Berlin on November 11th 1989...

[Smersh]

problem in 1981 OBB for E. Germany:2nd line tanks have a T-55A with a newer gun then the standard tank company's T-55A. The 2nd line version has model 1977 gun, with higher sabot penetration, the standard has a 1960 model gun with lower sabot penetration.

[DRG]

Smersh said:
problem in 1981 OBB for E. Germany:2nd line tanks have a T-55A with a newer gun then the standard tank company's T-55A. The 2nd line version has model 1977 gun, with higher sabot penetration, the standard has a 1960 model gun with lower sabot penetration.

I'd planned to create a post regarding OOB error reporting sometime this weekend but I think I'll use this one as an example right now. This is not in any way meant to dump on "Smersh" because a lot of others do exactly the same thing. I just happened to notice this today so for this example you can all take the "you" to mean YOU.


First off, providing the unit number is mandatory if you think you've found an error with a specific tank in an OOB. Telling me it's a T-55A only wastes my time. There are three T-55's in the EG OOB. I have 92 OOB's in WinSPMBT to look after and 36 more in WinSPWW2. Most people poke around less than a half dozen OOB's so if you want to get a perceived problem fixed then telling me the unit number of the "problem" unit goes a long way to getting it fixed

Smersh said:
"2nd line tanks have a T-55A with a newer gun then the standard tank company's T-55A....."

OK that "second line" tank would be unit 364 . It carries a 100mm D10T 77 gun and has an in service date starting 1980 and runs to 1991. The other T-55 ( that would be unit 9 ) that is in the regular tank companies starts in 1963 and runs to 1979...... hold on......the line tank in service date ends BEFORE the upgraded T-55 goes to the reserve units.

So where's the problem ?

Smersh said:
The 2nd line version has model 1977 gun, with higher sabot penetration, the standard has a 1960 model gun with lower sabot penetration.

Let's look at the other T-55a in service at the same time as the reserve T-55a. That would be unit 329 and it's a CS= CLOSE SUPPORT TANK and it's only finds a home in the CS Tank Co - Available: 01/65-09/90 and the CS Tank Pl - Available: 01/65-09/90. It's primary job is to put HE on targets, it doesn't even HAVE sabot since fighting other tanks is not it's purpose. It has some HEAT rounds for self protection against tanks but it's primary purpose is to support infantry and for that it has nearly double the HE of a "normal" T-55 ands since the HE kill and HEAT penetration are the same for both the model 60 and the model 77 gun/ammo there would be no need to "upgrade" the gun because when we upgrade the gun we are usually upgrading the ammo issued and in this case the only upgrade is to Sabot and the CS tanks are not issued with SABOT.

So this "error" isn't an error at all and every time someone posts an error report like this it's only a matter of time before I ignore them and deal with the ones that give me clear info to work with and don't take big chunk of time to sort out.

The REAL ERROR that NOBODY else caught wasn't that the CS tank has an old gun ( because it's irrelevant to it's purpose ) but that the T-55a that went to reserve status is given the upgraded "gun" ( ammo ) but not given any SABOT rounds to fire

And that's the information I've added to my "future upgrades" list and really, all I needed in that case would have been something like this.......

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
East German OOB unit 364 has an upgraded gun/ammo but has not been given SABOT for that weapon ( weapon 90 )
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's something I can find and fix in a minute or two. The first "error message" took 45 minutes to sort out. Guys.... I don't HAVE 45 minutes to spend on every OOB error OK ? If you have something to report make it concise and to the point, give me all the info YOU WOULD NEED if someone was reporting it to you and keep the verbiage to a minimum. I don't want a history lesson.

Now, if you want to report something like "Country X never had tank Y" you better be willing ( cheerfully ) to provide a source I can check because I will always assume the OOB is correct until proven wrong. If you know they never had a vehicle then you know where to find the proof. Don't expect me to take your word for it unless you are willing to back up what you say. If you do not want to back it up expect the report to be ignored

Some of the existing OOB error reporting threads are getting a little long in the tooth So I will be unsticking them and letting them drift away and I will set up a new thread where errors that are found can be reported

Don

[Smersh]

sorry I wasn't clear in my post. I'll follow the new error reporting format, next time I post about an OBB problem.

the East German OBB has both 2nd line tank formations and CS tank formations. (both are CS-MBT unit class, but 2nd line tanks carry standard ammo load out)

It's strange too me that the 2nd line version of the T-55A (unit 364) in the 2nd line tank formations, should carry a newer gun, model 1977, then the T-55A (unit 11) in the regualr tank formations which carry a model 1960. common sense would say it should be the other way-round. In this 3 year period between 1980 and 1983, it forces you to have to make an odd decision to chose 2nd line tank units to get a newer T-55A.

one simple solution would be to have unit 11 end in 1980. But this would leave no T-55s in standard tank formations. The only tank avialable would be the T-72

[narwan]

It's not a differrent gun, it's different ammo for the gun. Thye're all 100mm D10T 's. The number following refers to ammo quality. The D10T 60 (weapon 089) has sabot rounds with APCR 24, the D10T 77 (weapon 090) has APCR 30 (better sabot rounds) and the D10T (weapon 091) 79 has APCR 32. It's the same gun each time but with different, newer, ammo.
For the year I checked (1986) the regular companies had 79's, the CS companies a pick from 60's and 79's and the 2nd line companies from 60's and 77's. Seems fine to me?

Narwan

[Smersh]

I think this problem only occurs between in 1980 and 1983. In 12/1983 unit 11 ends avaliablity.

I realize that it just ammo differences but still strange that a 2nd line should have newer ammo then standard formations.

It only a small window where it's a problem but it bothered me when playing a 1981 battle.

[DRG]

Smersh said:
I think this problem only occurs between in 1980 and 1983. In 12/1983 unit 11 ends avaliablity.

I realize that it just ammo differences but still strange that a 2nd line should have newer ammo then standard formations.

It only a small window where it's a problem but it bothered me when playing a 1981 battle.

There IS NO PROBLEM ! the UPGRADE to that "gun" is the SABOT ammo and the CS tanks DO NOT USE SABOT so the "upgrade" applies to the reserve tanks becasue they got the sabot upgrade and the CS tanks, who's purpose is to provide infanrtry support NOT fight tanks don't get the "upgrade" becasue they don't get the shells that consitute the upgrade.

OK?

Don

[Shan]

OK great to have an inside account on this as well - so now, however, we can finally agree that they never had T-62s. Again, AFAIK the only WP country that actually got T-62s was Bulgaria.

If you look at the (real) East German OOB at various times then you see (with sources such as the book I mentioned) then you see how big the difference of, say, theoretically available equipmnt to the Soviets was, when compared to what was made available to WP countries and how long it took to equip their units with any relevant numbers. In the late 60s/early 70s, MMR divisions still had a fair share of upgraded T-34/85s, and in the late 70s/early 80s these were exchanged for T-54s, and so on. But even at that time, a lot of T-34s were still in storage as a emergency reserve... and would have shown up on the battlefield - in an extreme case, imagine a t-34/80 unit against the very first M-1s or Leo2s... but it could have happened.

[Smersh]

yeah, thats definetly confirmed no T-62s in E. German service.

[mr_clark]

Shan said:
If you look at the (real) East German OOB at various times then you see (with sources such as the book I mentioned) then you see how big the difference of, say, theoretically available equipmnt to the Soviets was, when compared to what was made available to WP countries and how long it took to equip their units with any relevant numbers. In the late 60s/early 70s, MMR divisions still had a fair share of upgraded T-34/85s, and in the late 70s/early 80s these were exchanged for T-54s, and so on. But even at that time, a lot of T-34s were still in storage as a emergency reserve... and would have shown up on the battlefield - in an extreme case, imagine a t-34/80 unit against the very first M-1s or Leo2s... but it could have happened.

Well, the T34s weren't kept maintenanced in the 80s anymore At least not in Potsdam military district...

It's always good to remember that the T-55 was "the" MBT, with an emphasis on main, in the NVA, and many upgrades were produced in country. Better sights, range finders (my father told me a friend of him in a tank batallion said they even got laser range finders for them in 1988...) Mostly all the stuff we could produce that the soviets couldn't do as good. .. Unfortunately it'S nearly impossible to find actual written documents on all that as its not publicly available, as nobody bothers to make it so...