I get the feeling your mind was made up a long time ago. Trying to convince you otherwise is probably a futile gesture, but hey... I got nothing better to do right now.
Nothing is futile.
I know what I know, and I know it until someone proves to me I don't really know what I know, after which what I know becomes what I
thought before I knew what I know. Or something like that.
For instance, the 20mm spaced armor on the front of the III.
Another for instance:
Your math is way off. Using the numbers from the site you used the Germans produced 1,938.3 thousand Pzgr. 39 shells and 721.8 thousand Pzgr. 40 shells in 1942. Even if we assume that the Pzgr. 40/1 is included in that number the portion of hartkern rounds is 100 / ( 1938.3 + 721.8 ) * 721.8 = 27.1 %
The Sprgr. is a HE shell, not an AT round.
I obviously did not read the chart carefully enough.
The title was "AT
Gun Ammunition", which I read as "AT Ammunition", and as a result I thought they were referring to a solid shot AP round (as opposed to the capped or APCR rounds), and not the HE round.
I was wrong -- my bad.
You see, the tanks got priority for the hartkern ammunition.
Do you have a firm source that says how much APCR was typically loaded into a III in the Desert (getting back to our original disagreement)? 27% of AP as the lazy, production-based approach would suggest? 50% of AP? Surely not 100%?
If you don't know, I'll keep looking . . . but not tonight. My head hurts.
That assumption is wrong. The Germans started producing hartkern (tungsten core APCR) shots very early and used them more extensively than any other nation... Even to the point of arming their anti-tank aircraft with hartkern firing cannons (Ju 87G, Ju 88 and Hs 129 primary).
I am uncertain why you think raw materials shortages did not limit their use? Look at the tables again. 1942 is most certainly the peak production of APCR rounds, after which, both numbers and proportions drop off precipitously. By 1944 I don't see
any Pz.Gr.40 rounds being produced
at all, for any gun. (I am sure you will correct me if I am mis-reading something else.) If raw materials were not an issue, and the APCR is so much more effective than the Pz.Gr.39 rounds, why do they disappear?
By the way:
No. The fact is that the M4 and T-34 are fairly equal in performance (I believe I said that in my first post), but the T-34 entered the war in a critical stage and at a time where it was superior to the German tanks. The M4 arrived much later and was no match to the German tanks being fielded at the time.
The Spitfire I and 109E were fairly equal designs, but if the Spit I had entered service in late 1942 everyone would have considered it inferior. The T-34 was a pre-war design, that the M4 matched its performance two years into the war is not a badge of merit.
So I assume, for the sake of consistency, you would also say that by 1942 the IIIs also surpassed the T-34 as the better tank on the East Front?