The T34 was a bit unreliable, hows about the Cromwell or Comet hull for speed and maneuverability (almost as reliable as a Sherman but faster and better cross country)
Still, it would be a great debate if tables could be presented concerning the number of disabled Panthers/production vs disabled Tigers / production.
Tigers were in their “golden year” 1943 a much better offering - albeit psychological alone - than the Panthers were in 1944. yes, they costed a lot of effor, yet the investment got bigger return. And they simply had a gun that could be used much more efficient in infantry support against soft targets and guns in later scenario’s.
When its maintenance problems had been worked out by 1944 it was showing 78% availability.
No questions there, yet 1943 was a disaster. A disaster not seen with other tanks. And by the end of 1944 all Axis tanks were vulnerable.
I’m still convinced another road could have been taken. Panther was just one design line they pursued, instead of others.
The best tank of the war would have been a Sherman M-4A3E8 turret with a 17 lb gun & APDS mounted on a suitably modified T-34 chassie.
Owww … you’re hitting into the mix shop 
Now there’s a box of pandora!
Sherman/T34 vs the III/IV 
I’d prefer an M-46 Patton, with all the M-26 Pershing’s teething and lack-of-power issues resolved. But you need a port to land them…
The truth is that there is no ‘perfect’ tank, even though the U.S. Army should have moved away from tank destroyers and adopted the 17-pdr. for the Sherman much earlier than they did (not bothering with the 76mm), the 75mm gun variants were still very effective in anti-personnel roles and against softer targets. You still need a proper mix of good AFV’s…
Soviets had small maintenance companys which contributed to troubles in the early war on the eastern front. By 1944 they were pretty good.
In the hands of the americans it would have been well maintained.
True.
I bet it would have been a nice idea to put some more 10.5cm leFH18 canons on some panzers. Not just on the StuH 42. Even they could knock out a lot or armour with hollow charge, especially in ambush
As the older Panzer III came back to shop for rebuilds from 1942 on, I would convert them into SiG-33B [80mm frontal armor plus fixed mounted IG 150L11] HEAT shell could penetrate 160mm and HE shell could level the average ‘house’. Use them like STuG was supposed to be used from the start to level any enemy strong points holding up offensive.
possibly
But aren’t the StuG’s (and in extend StuH) some of the best AFV ever built by nazi germany?
Every SiG33 is a StuG less. The StuH had more HE capacity, with still a precise enough gun and with the low silhouet of the StuG.
It may be a sidestep but a stronger and larger Luftwaffe from 1942 on would have led to less air dominance by the allies. This would have ceased the need for mobile FLak platforms based on III and IV chassis. And therefor would have given resources for even more StuG and StuH. In a way a stronger air force was perhaps the best choice in order to have a performing and balanced armour force.
Sure but they were increasingly needed more as Jadg Panzers and were used as such. Germany was still building 400-800 IG 150L11 guns for the infantry, but this gun was too heavy and better mounted on some tracked chassie. Most Panzer III sent back to factory for rebuild were rebuilt as more Panzer III, which was valuable choice in 1940/41 and poor choice by 1943/44. They were not rebuilt as STuG or StuH.
A few hundred more Panzer IV hulls would not have altered the outcome much , but reducing all production down to 2-3 hulls with maybe one variant each; would have boosted out put significantly. This is especially true if such models remain in production for 4 or more years. Rebuilding and conversion of old chassie was a method of filling these specialised roles without the wasteful practice of small ‘special order’ production runs.
exactly … but why not dismiss Tiger AND Panther then by the end of 1943 and work on remodelling the IV? With remodelling I suggest conversion to the economical construction of welding self bearing hull plates (T34, Panther,…) instead of using a beam structure with added plates (III and IV)? This would have reduced te cost of the IV while adding armour in one step. Don’t forget the “investment” of the “better” Panther happened parallel with the continuous production of the IV till the and of the war. There is no added production value there.
Germany had to pursit a high low mix of armaments with the vast majority of production for defensive AFVs ; but also leave as much as possible for the counter attack/counter stroke forces. The ideal expression of this was the Hetzer as low cost Jagdpanzer/STuG for the masses of infantry divisions in defensive operations, while Panther tank is produced for tank divisions. In 1945 this ideal was to produce about 7000 Panthers and 17000 Hetzers.
And why was the IV and StuG still in production then in 1945? Simply because even the Panther with it’s better ‘war-economical’ design couldn’t keep up enough with the war pace to fill the needs and the IV stayed the backbone. I can’t believe the road that had been taken was in the end that much better investment given the “old” IV was not swapped with Panther production. This means a new technology/production run was being invested without putting out all production capacity. that was not efficient.
The plans were to shift all PzIV/III production to Hetzer and the Waffentrager AFV by mid 1945.
The waffentragers along with the Hetzer were all based on Panzer 38(t) and RSO components, would they have changed med tank production to them when they had already stopped some factories producing the RSO etc and convert to just trucks?
Thats what the plan was. May have had hiccups along the way, but thats what they were aiming for. BTW the Hetzer was an improved D model.
Segment of “Deutsche Wochenschau” comparative of Panther with General lee, subtitled. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=20b_1352039974
I have a question for the panzer gurus. One of the Panther’s greatest weaknesses was its thin side armor that could be penetrated by a 40mm Bofors round. Why did the Germans not put applique armor side-skirts on like they did on later versions of the Panzer Mark IV?
COz it had no sense maybe? The additional armor skirt-plate is a additional weigh and limitation of maneuvrebility . Plus this is effective only against cumulative shells.It still a question could 40mm Bofors round hit the back side of Panther ( depend on distance and angle of fire)- it had a 40mm/30degrees side armor while Panzer IV had only 30mm/90dergees - this is really weak agains most of types allied and soviet anti-tank guns ( 75-90 mm i think for the last period of war) .
The extra weight on the turret may have caused problems for its already deficient turret traverse system.
The Panthers had a turret traverse dependant on engine rpm (at idle it took 60 seconds to traverse 360 degrees, at 3000rpm it took 15 seconds to traverse 360 degress although engine was later governed down to 2500 rpm to try and reduce wear which increased traverse to 18 seconds for 360 degrees). To traverse the turret quickly required close co-operation between the gunner and driver (who may be busy actually driving the tank in a high gear so low rpm and therefore have to slip the clutch and rev or over-rev the engine and change into a lower gear).
Add extra weight and you could slow the turret further as well as stressing the chassis and drive train more (they had already had to do an increase in some of the side and top armour adding weight to a taxed and poor final drive design on the chassis), the Sherman had a turret traverse of 360 degrees in 15 seconds no matter the engine rpm and in many situations it was who gets first shot gets the kill.
The Panther also had a poor gunners view (only had the gun sight itself) which meant that it often took 30 seconds from the commander identifying the target before the gunner could start to engage (not withstanding traverse speed etc), in the close up fighting that was becoming more prevalent this was starting to put the Panther at some disadvantages.
Interesting. It seems the Panther suffered from teething issues to the end…
It was never fully developed, was thrown into the field too soon. It was very overweight at 45 tons from its original concept of 35 tons. sadly the drive line had not been beefed up to match. The double spur gear final drive was too weak, and I am told that Drivers were trained to go very easy on the gas so as to not cause breakdowns. These deficiencies were made worse by sabotage inflicted by slave laborers. (damaging gear teeth, and blocking oil galleries)