Is there also Zimmerit on this round metal around the exhaust?
Isn’t that a bit “exagerated”? Or is it just mud? :rolleyes:
Here is the greatest tank produced in world war ll
THE RUSSIAN JS-3 PRODUCED 1945-46
46 tons
520 hp - 11 cyl diesel
Max Speed 40 MPH
ARMAMENT - 1 - 122mm High velosity D-25-T Main Gun (our M-1-A1 Abrams has a 120MM smooth bore) The famous panther only had a little bitty 75MM
1 - 7.62 Coaxual machine gun
1 - 12.5 MM Machine gun
ARMOR - 250MM turret compaired to 120 MM in the German Panther
120MM front slope
During the parade ceremonies on V-E Day the British rolled out there comet
We Americans rolled out our new Chaffee
after they passed the ground started to shake and the soviets rolled out this monster 60 of them.
Patton leaned over to Monty and said “Its OK there still on our side”
Cavalry Gunner
Is a very good tank, but is not really clear if actually saw some combat in WW2, so teorically the Panther still got his crown.
Here is my point :
Maybe the pz.kpfw. V (Panther) was better than the T34, technologically speaking. Maybe it had better performances than the Russian tank. But it was quite a complex machine and very expensive to the 3rd Reich. It was also difficult to repair, being so complex. In the mean time, T34 was a really simple war machine, easy to repair (if the engine broke down, you could even replace it with a KV’s one), easy to adapt it’s production line to newer versions and quite cheap to the Soviet Union. Moreover, it didn’t “eat” so much fuel as the Panther did.
Of course, technologically speaking, it was a tank which had very good performances and it was a tank with which you could succesfully lead an assault. Operation Bagration prooved it’s qualities, both technologically and economically speaking.
In my opinion, the best tank is not the tank with the best technological qualities, it is the tank which succesfully combine both the technological and economical qualities.
No question on that, but if a Panther can destroy 7 ot 8 T-34 before being put out of action…I dont really see the justification for the dead people inside a Sherman /T-34 in “hey man you might be burned and dead now but your tank is simplier and more easy to mantain that that panzer killing you”
See my point ? :rolleyes:
I see…but for the 3 victorious leaders, the tank was much more important than it’s crew…remember the Allied saying during the Normandy campaign? : ammunition, not people.
It is sad, I recognize, but for the good to triumph, it has always been necesarly the sacrifice of it’s defenders…as one historian said (I don’t exactly remember his name) , the tree of liberty must constantly be wet with the heroes’ blood … otherwise it dries up and dies.
Really its not the tank its what the crew can do with one I was distinguished gunner in 17 of 18 gunnerys on M-60-A1’s and M-551 Sheridans and fought in the 72-73 Arab Israeli war in 60’s and Ill tell you this the #1 tank ace OF ALL TIME was S/SGT Lafayette Pool and his crew he killed 258 German Armored vehicles among them a score of Panthers and King tigers and he did it in SHERMANS…
Of course he had 3 of them shot out from underneath him all three called IN THE MOOD and lost his leg in his last engagement.
The US Army allowed him back in the service in 1949 and he tought Armor tactics untill his retirement at the Armor School at Ft Knox KY.
I lived in Germany for 4 years and every WWll German tank crewman Ive run across said the same thing about the T-34 when we saw it we knew it was over for us.
Guederian said up untill the first T-34 appeared we enjoyed tank superiority and afterword the situation was reversed
About the 3rd Armored Division in Germany
http://hometown.aol.com/wawabat/therock.html
Obviously a good crew is needed but in some tanks you had not many chances, put yourself in a japanese typ 97 and you ll see. :rolleyes:
There is something more about that U.S tank ace in the ww2 general discussion.
There is just one problem. There are no figures showing anything like the kill rates claimed for the Uber-Panzers.
In 1944 total British tank losses in France/Low Countries were some 2800.
German tank losses in the same area were just over 2100 (without The Bulge Decemberv1944 losses which were very high)
US Losses were 3107
So we would have a ratio of tank to tank losses of around 2100:5900 or a little over 2.8:1(without the German December Bulge losses)
Now if you include the German armored SP/JgdPzr loss totals of well over 1000 (again less the Bulge losses) you get an idea of how the claims of 5:1 Sherman losses are simply wishful thinking.
Panther ausf A in a dug in emplacement in Berlin, March 1945, this vehicle has been shot until extintion.
Servicing the Panther with the help of a 6 ton crane.
Why did the Germans not make a better engine for the Panthers, Tiger 1 and Tiger 2?
It must be lack of time/resources.
There was plans for a 800 hp diesel engine for the Panther, the production of that would begin in …1946 :rolleyes:
It is a shame that such great minds were used for such evil.
Well, some Panthers were used for good (sort of); the French Army (and several others I believe) deployed them after the War…
Oh did not know that.
Panther knocked out in France, 1944, the resilience of the frontal armor was truly impressive, this vehicle have at list seven 75 or 76 mm hits at the front, 4 in the glacis and 3 in the gun mantlet, the only damage visible is a rupture in the mantlet near the gun and a small penetration ( better said craking) in the lower left corner of sloped armor.
Wow that is impressive. To think that it survived so much damaged before getting knocked out.
