But that one seems to be a Ausf.A. AFAIK there were no Ausf.D with casted cupola but Ausf.A with drum cupolas.
It’s a horrifyingly beautiful tank and a work of Teutonic art. If it had been a tad more reliable and easier to produce, it would have truly been the perfect main battle tank…
But that one seems to be a Ausf.A. AFAIK there were no Ausf.D with casted cupola but Ausf.A with drum cupolas
Hmmm, could be I should read again the source wich was “Panther in Action” by B Culver Sqn Signal.
Just thought I’d add my two cents… I voted for the T-34. On my deployments and experience, I’ve found that simple is good. It doesn’t do you much good if the vehicle is broken down, or if its awaiting parts. The Sherman would have been last on the list for me with the Tiger just in front. The decision was difficult for me between the Panther and the T-34, but in the end, I felt that the effective gun and armor of the T-34 combined with simplicity, mobility, and reliability won out. Just food for thought, but the T-34 is still used in some countries today! That’s one heck of a service life!
The Panther inner road wheel had a metal rim to protect the rubber.That is what an be seen on the photo.
Cheers
PC
I voted Panther for sure.
T34 was a cheap biscuit with nice features, but was in fact still underarmored from 1942 onwards and probably underarmed as well till the 85mm canon.
High production, yet it may as well be the most “shot to pieces” tank in history…
Yet there are other possibilities. KV tank was a real beast at the early years.
And if assault guns come into the picture, the StuG is pure class.
100% agreed. Even with the upgunned /85 the T-34 lost accession to the that time tank developement. Though the T-34 received the stronger D-5T gun the survivability in combat zone did not increase because the crew protection system remained as it was. Although the Sherman remained inferior as concept compared to the German “big 3” the Sherman crew survivability increased due the same time due to better crew protection(wet system a.o.). And the D-5T was in best case even to the western 3" guns viewed from AT performance.
Indeed.
I prefer the KV-85.
The Sherman was as a matter of fact a better tool in infantry support.
Thanks for another good forum and for all the info and pictures. I have a few comments after reading this forum thread. The T-34 did use the Christie suspension and the Christie also had very sloped armor so I believe the Soviets did use these design features in the T-34. About the Sherman…the T-34 always gets the credit for being the first to use sloped armor,why isn’t the armor on the Sherman considered to be sloped?..looks sloped to me. About the Panthers suspension,the important feature of the Panthers suspension wasn’t so much for a “soft ride” but for the travel of the road wheels it allowed,it could go over bigger bumps and holes without shifting the whole tank up and down. In my opinion the Panther’s poor reliability was partly do to being a new design but also,as with many German late war tanks the people who built them. The further they got into the war the more unskilled slave labor was used and they also did things on purpose to cause them to later break down once out of the factory. I learned recently that a Tiger I could have it’s main gun jammed if a Sherman got a perfect shot between the bottom of the mantlet and the hull and Allied tankers were told to do so if facing a Tiger I head on. Thanks again for the thread and all the posts,it’s been a good read 
Sloped armor was not much of an advantage initially, when the plate were thin in relation to the attacking projectile, the projectile would turn a bit and take a longer route through the plate. However the amount of steel used on sloped plate is a LOS function and the same resistance could be achieved by plates that were closer to the enemy shell diameter. In that case if the vertical plate was hard it would defeat the projectile. That changed during the war when caped projectiles appeared and the advantage of hard vertical plates was defeated by very high velocity hardened projectiles and sub caliber projectiles.
However a sub plot to all this was ricochet. If the plate is moderately sloped like on the Sherman glacis it could ricochet the projectile of moderate velocity projectiles, unless the impact from straight on or at high velocity . When the combined slope reaches 60° , then even shells of higher velocity will ricochet so that if the combined slope reaches 70° they pretty much all ricochet away, especially if that sloped plate is hardened steel. That’s where the T-34 glacis worked best and that’s why later tanks had thicker hardened sloped plates to defeat the high velocity projectiles and that dynamic has continued to present day.
I think the Panther was the best because it combined the qualities of most of the ww2 tanks: the inclined armour of the T-34, an excelent 75mm gun, a good speed, good reliability (comparing with Tiger I & II) of the shermans! another 100% agreed with steben!
There is a Sherman on display at Rock Island Arsenal where a lot were rebuilt.
It was struck fom the side just at the curve of the roof armour.
There is a penetration in the form of a groove a foot long as I recall.
I think the crew was killed and there are signs of an internal fire.
From the position it is interesting the round did not ricochet off.
A real drawback for the Germans was the long barrels.
Hard to use in many environments and easily damaged.
True about long barrels…but that’s how they get the increased velocity. It would be cool to see pics of that Sherman,I found this site while doing a search for destroyed tanks.
I’m not aware of people telling T34 was particularly the first with sloped armour … 
T34 was cheap cheap cheap and was a combined blessing of speed, cost and armour for de SU. That’s it. To be honest, I’ld prefer a Sherman over a T34. I’m even sure there were more Shermans produced than T34’s.
The equivalent of “ideal tool” for the Germans as the T34 was for SU is in my eyes the StuG III. Not a MBT, but a very keen and intelligent “brainstorm” design of a defensive weapon when one was quickly needed.
- slow turrets.
short barrels and fast turrets are very good elements of an almost-infantry-support tank in the attack, especially when delivered in large numbers. A nest of hornets.
Slow turrets and long barrels means very high fire power at range. Since The Germans were in the defense from 1942-43, this was not a big drawback, on the contrary.
As one can see in specific production numbers and amounts of different types of armour at the front, the Germans used a mixed batch of vehicles. There wasn’t any “big line” MBT or gun. Even from the beginning, since the arms industry and development already had a lag behind war facts.
A lot of the different designs are sound ( even if overengineered and way to diverse) but I guess the troops themselves wanted a Tiger if they had the choice, simply because it had a “vibe” over it. Allied forces were afraid of Tigers. And maybe that IS an important factor in comparing tanks.
Although the Panther IS deadlier and cheaper.
Perhaps I need to join Tiger fanclub.
The time the Tiger was introduced, it outclassed all. 100 and 80mm armour all around it was the heaviest at its introduction. The turret was large and gave huge working space.
It’s heavy gun could blow up fortifications as well as it could defeat armour. The heavy shells (in contrast to german high velocity race, the Tiger got the “available” 88mm gun) proved accurate at very long range, knocking out tanks as if they were aircraft in the distance. Records show that Tigers were not invincable and lost, but in very low percentages compared to other tanks friend or foe. Many Tiger companies lost almost no tanks during Kursk.
At the end, the Tiger could be knocked out because of new gun material and air force, but in 1943 it was almost undefeated, especially in long range battles and making use of rotated positioning.
By 1944, the Panther was a better design in many aspects, but never reached the break-through effectiveness of the Tiger. As stated above, low production isn’t always a major drawback. The Tiger was a very effective tool, giving kill ratio’s way above 10:1, even in periods of attacking role. Crews were very heavy trained and experienced and needed to be as well. Tiger units always consisted of back-up Panzer III’s or StuG’s and some infantry support. It was a magic concept, given the limited resources and men and getting the most out of combining material.
You forgot the part about it being very costly, difficult to produce using slave labor, and fairly unreliable…
The Tiger I was hardly a magic concept, I don’t recall seeing any Tiger units that were also equipped with Pzkpfw III (which were largely withdrawn in 1943) or Stug’s. On occasion they were assigned to other units in the same way that the Independant tank Brigades were in the UK and the US TD battalions were.
The Russian KV I (1940, 130mm frontal armour by 1942 when the tiger was introduced) had more of an effect than the Tiger did on its introduction along with the French Char B1 (1934) (and B1 bis, 1937) and British Matilda I (1938) and II (1939). All of which were impervious to all German AT weapons and only the timely use of the Flak 36 helped reduce their effectiveness.
The French and British tanks were a direct cause for the design of the Tiger I (incidently the first three Tiger I’s destroyed in the West were by 6 pdr guns ‘57mm’ in North Africa in one of their first combat engagements January 1943).
The Panther was a result of engagements with the T34 which showed the Germans needed to replace their Pzkpfw III medium tanks with something better in the future (at this time the Pzkpfw IV was still mostly an infantry support tank).
No, I didn’t actually.
The bulk of the armoured divisions still were III’s, IV’s or Panthers, and the amount of Tigers never was spectacular. But it was a fierce weapon, with very high kill ratios during 1943 - 1944, active in Heavy Tank battalions, with specific orders. Tigers were used in early 1943 Kharkov breakthrough fe and they were rarely lost in “hopeless battles” as in Kursk, were the “cheaper” tanks simply diminished.
Panthers were not that much more unreliable.
In fact, the ratio cost / survivibility if looking at statistics was not worse than a III or IV. And again, the Germans never had heaps of armoured personel reserves as they had in 1939-1940. Even if production of thousands of tanks would have been available, there wouldn’t have been enough well-trained crews, making every “cheaper” tank hopelessly weak on the field.
I was talking about early as in 1943 to 1944, long before the Allied landings. And the Tiger is not a concept, it’s a tank. Concept is how you put them in action.