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The Panther () was a tank of Germany in World War II that served from mid-1943 to end of the war in Europe in 1945. It was intended as a counter to the T-34, and to replace the Panzer IV and III, though it served along with them and the heavier tanks until the end of the war. It is considered the best tank of WWII alongside the Soviet T-34/85. Until 1944 it was designated as the Panzerkampfwagen V Panther and had the Ordnance inventory designation of Sd.Kfz. 171. On 27 February 1944, Hitler ordered that the tank only be known as Panther. Development and production The Panther was a direct response to the Soviet T-34. First encountered on 23 June 1941, the T-34 decisively outclassed the existing Panzer IV and Panzer III. At the insistence of General Heinz Guderian a team was dispatched to the Eastern Front to assess the T-34. Among the features of the Soviet tank considered most significant were the sloping armor, which gave much improved shot deflection and also increased the apparent armor thickness against penetration, the wide track and large road wheels which improved mobility over soft ground, and the long, over-hanging gun. Daimler-Benz (DB) and Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg AG (MAN) were tasked with designing a new 30-35 ton tank, designated VK3002, by April 1942 (apparently in time to be shown to Hitler for his birthday). The two proposals were delivered in April 1942. The Daimler-Benz (DB) design was a direct 'homage' to the T-34, side-stepping the German propensity for over-engineering, and hence complexity, to produce a clean, simple design resembling the T-34 in hull and turret form, diesel engine, drive system, leaf spring suspension, track layout, and other features. The MAN design was more conventional to German thinking; it was higher and wider with a substantial turret placed far back on the hull, a petrol engine, torsion bar suspension and a characteristically German internal crew layout. The MAN design was accepted in May 1942, in spite of Hitler's preference for the DB design. A mild steel prototype was produced by September 1942 and after testing at Kummersdorf was officially accepted. It was put into immediate production with the very highest priority. The start of production was delayed however, mainly because there were too few specialized machine tools needed for the machining of the hull. Finished tanks were produced in December and suffered from reliability problems as a result of this haste. The demand for this tank was so high the manufacturing was soon expanded out of MAN to include Daimler-Benz and in 1943 the firms of Maschinenfabrik Niedersachsen-Hannover (MNH) and Henschel & Sohn in Kassel. The initial production target was 250 a month at MAN; this was increased to 600 a month in January 1943. Despite determined efforts, this figure was never reached due to disruption by Allied bombing, manufacturing bottlenecks and other difficulties. Production in 1943 averaged 148 per month. In 1944, it averaged 315 a month (3777 having been built that year), peaking with 380 in July and ending around the end of March 1945 with at least 6000 built in total. Strength peaked on 1 September 1944 at 2304, but that same month a record number of 692 tanks were reported lost (source: T.L. Jentz (1999) Die deutsche Panzertruppe Band 2). Design characteristics If the over-hanging gun and sloping armor are ignored, the Panther was a conventional German design. The tank's weight had increased to 43 tonnes from the planned 35. The Panther was the first Axis tank design where modern features were more prominent than early WWII-era ones. The rule-of-thumb among Allied tank crews of Sherman-to-Panther ratio necessary for destruction of a single Panther was 5:1, or the same as with the Tiger. Once the problems caused by the vulnerability of the engine and the transmission were solved, it proved to be a very effective fighting vehicle, being as effective as the Tiger, but less demanding to produce and logistically far less troublesome. Engine The Panther was powered by a 700 horsepower (515 kW)/3000 rpm, 23.1 litre Maybach HL 230 P30 V-12 petrol engine that drove two front drive sprockets via the gearbox and steering unit. The engine was generally considered reliable and had a fatigue life of up to 2000 kilometers. In order to minimize engine failures the Panther engines were fitted with a governor in late 1943 that limited the engine revolutions to 2500 rpm and power to 600 hp. The installation of the governor also dropped the tank's top speed from 55 km/h to 46 km/h. Suspension The suspension consisted of front drive sprockets, rear idlers and eight double-interleaved rubberized steel bogie wheels on each side suspended on dual torsion bar suspension that had of two torsion bars per each swing arm. The Panther's suspension was costly and time-consuming to manufacture but it provided the tank with the best cross-country mobility of its time. Steering Tank control was accomplished through a seven-speed AK 7-200 synchromesh gearbox, designed by ZF, and a MAN single radius steering system, operated by steering levers. The steering system allowed a single, fixed radius of turn at each gear. The higher the gear, the bigger was the turning radius. If the radius was bigger than desired, the steering brakes could be used to tighten the turn. The weakest part in the tank were, throughout its career, the final drive units. The main reason for this was that the units could not be manufactured using hollow gears due to the shortage of suitable gear cutting machinery in Germany during the war. The final drives were in fact so weak that their fatigue life was sometimes as low as 150 km. Crew The crew was made up of five members: driver, radio operator (who also fired the bow machine gun), gunner, loader, and commander. Armor The armor consisted of a homogeneous steel glacis plate, welded but also interlocked for strength. The 20 initial pre-production vehicles only had a maximum of 60 mm of armor on the glacis. This was quickly increased to 80 mm once the serial production started with Ausf. D. The armor had a maximum thickness of 120 mm on the gun mantlet that covered most of the turret front. It was later found out that the rounded mantlet created a shot-trap: if a non-penetrating hit bounces off the lower mantlet it may penetrate the hull top armor into the driver compartment. In Summer 1944 the lower mantlet was fitted with a small belt of vertical armor to prevent those deflections. Five millimeter skirt armor, Schürzen, intended to provide protection for the suspension and Zimmerit coating against magnetic mines also became standard with the Ausf. A and retrofitted to older versions. Armament The main gun was a semi-automatic 75 mm Rheinmetall KwK 42 (L/70) with 79 rounds (82 on Ausf. G). The main gun used three different types of ammunition, APCBC-HE (Pzgr. 39/42), HE (SprGr. 42) and APCR (Pzgr. 40/42), which was usually in short supply. 75 mm was not a particularly large calibre for the time. Nonetheless, the Panther's gun was one of the most powerful tank guns of WWII, due to the large propellant charge and the long barrel, which gave it a very high muzzle velocity. The flat trajectory also made hitting targets much easier, since aiming was less sensitive to range. The 75 mm gun actually had more penetrating power than the 88 mm KwK 36 L/56 gun, although not of the 88 mm KwK 43 L/71. An MG 34 machine gun was located co-axially with the main gun on the gun mantlet; another MG 34 was located on the glacis plate and fired by the radio operator. Initial ausf D and early ausf A models used a 'letterbox' flap opening through which the machine gun was fired. Later ausf A and all ausf G models use a more conventional ball mount in the glacis for this machine gun. The ausf A introduced a new cast commander's cupola. It featured a steel hoop to which a third MG 34 could be mounted for use in the anti-aircraft role. Combat use The Panther first saw mass action around the Kursk on 5 July 1943. Early tanks were plagued with mechanical problems: the track and suspension often broke and the engine was dangerously prone to over-heating and bursting into flames. Initially, more Panthers were disabled by their own failings than by enemy action. For example, the XLVIII Panzer Corps reported on July 10, 1943, that they had 38 Panthers operational and 131 awaiting repair, out of about 200 they had started with on July 5. Heinz Guderian, who had not wanted Hitler to order them into combat so soon, later remarked about the early Panther's performance in the battle: "they burnt too easily, the fuel and oil systems were insufficiently protected, and the crews were lost due to lack of training." However, Guderian also stated that the firepower and frontal armor were good. While many of the Panthers used at Kursk were damaged or suffered from mechanical difficulties, only a small number were lost for good and the tanks also achieved success, destroying 263 Soviet tanks. After Kursk, the problems of early Ausf. D models were fixed, making the Panther a formidable tank. A German comparison of German tanks with the new (at the time) Russian T-34/85 and JS-II (122 mm), from March 23 of 1944, stated that: "The Panther is far superior to the T-34/85 for frontal fire (Panther Ausf G could penetrate frontal armor of T-34/85 at 2000 m, while T-34/85 could penetrate frontal armor of Panther Ausf G at 500 m), approximately equal for side and rear fire, superior to the JS1 for frontal fire and inferior for side and rear fire." In 1943 and 1944, Panther was able to destroy any allied enemy tank in existence at ranges of 2,000 m, while in general veteran Panther crews reported 90 percent hit rate at ranges up to 1,000 m. According to US Army Ground Forces statistics, destruction of a single Panther was achieved after destruction of an average of 5 M4 Shermans or some 9 T-34s. The Panther remained a major German tank until the end of the war. Later versions of the Panzer IV with long 75 mm KwK 40 L/48 guns were slightly cheaper to produce and more reliable and so it remained in production alongside the Panther. However the main reason for the prolonged Panzer IV production was that the re-organization of the German tank industry to manufacture Panthers rather than Panzer IVs would have resulted in such a temporary decrease in overall tank production that it would have been unbearable for Germany when the tide of war had already turned. Panthers saw the most service on the Eastern Front, though by the D-Day landings of June 1944, Panzer units stationed in France were also receiving Panther tanks, which were used to good effect on that front. Approximately half of the German tanks in France were Panthers. Around the time of the Battle of the Bulge a number of Panther tanks were configured to look roughly like an M10 Wolverine, as part of a larger operation that involved para-dropping soldiers disguised as Americans, and other activities. Captured Panthers proved to be extremely popular vehicles among Soviet troops, who received them as rewards for extraordinary achievements in combat, and who sought (contrary to regulations that captured Tigers and Panthers should not be repaired but abandoned and destroyed after mechanical failure) to keep them in service as long as possible. Even the humorous instruction manual for German Panther crews, called the ''Pantherfibel'' (Panther Primer); was translated into Russian and provided to crews of captured Panthers. Projects and prototypes Design work on the Panther II began in February 1943. The main aim was to secure maximum interchangeability of parts with the Tiger II heavy tank in order to ease manufacturing. The Panther II had a hull similar to the Tiger Ausf. B, and also shared identical wheels, track, suspension and brakes. One of the parts to be changed was the gun-mantlet, which had to become smaller. This was referred to in German as "Turm mit schmaler Blende" (narrow-mantlet turret). The Panther II project never got further than one single chassis, that now can be seen in the Patton museum. (See photo at axishistory.com) Later in the war, in March 1944, the work started again on a Panther turret with a smaller forward aspect. This led to the development of the Schmalturm (narrow turret). In August a Versuchsturm (trials turret) was completed. This was mounted on the chassis of a regular Panther Ausf. G. The Schmalturm featured thicker armour, a built in stereoscopic rangefinder, the capability to carry the 88mm KwK L/71 and eliminated the shot-trap under the mantle, all whilst weighing less than the original turret. In that same period, development of the Panther led to the Ausf. F, slated for production in April 1945. The key-points for this mark of Panther were the new Schmalturm with its improved armor-protection, an extended front hullroof which was also slightly thicker. A number of Ausf. F hulls were under construction at Daimler-Benz and Ruhrstahl-Hattingen steelworks. The only difference between the Panther and the Panther II was running gear, and increased armor protection. The turret was exactly the same on both types. The Panther II was only designed with the 7.5 cm KwK L/70 in mind, and the 8.8 cm KwK L/71 idea didn't enter into consideration after the Panther II project had been dropped. Designs based on chassis Production Panther use after the Second World War After 1945, fifty Panther tanks had been used by French 503e Régiment de Chars de Combat stationed in Mourmelon le Grand. Before the end of 1950, the Panther tanks had been replaced by French-built ARL 44 heavy tanks. yb Giovanni Paulli.jpg|650px|thumb|center|Three-view profile of Pzkpfw. V Ausf. A. Copyright Giovanni Paulli. http://www.paulligiovanni.com www.paulligiovanni.com. Extended specification | |||||||
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