Pzkpfw V Panther its variants.

[CharlesBronson]

Thanks, more of the ausf D.

Machining the turret emplacement and drilling the torsion bars axles, inside pics of the Maschinenfabrik Ausburg Nüremberg facilities (MAN)

 

[Matt308]

They machined the turret!?!?!?!?!? Wow! That must have been expensive and inefficient. I would have guess that it would have been cast, not machined.

 

[CharlesBronson]

-Turret emplacement- I mean the "hole" in wich the turret basket fits.

The turret itself was made from laminates steel plates put togheter by electric arc welding.

Panther ausf D in his way to the front, note the pistol port is open and its closing cap is hanging from his chain...perhaps the Panther defend itself from some agressive russians trough the village ?

In the later variants A/G the side pistol port was deleted for speed up production, fact that did not help in the urban enviroment always dangerous for armored vehicles.

 

[Catch22]

Just wonderful!

 

[Gnomey]

Great stuff CB!

 

[RATHED]

Regarding some of the things said earlier on this topic, I have to coment that the Panther was in fact a great weapon, and the germans did made a lot of strategic mistakes in its use, buit if anything the biggest one was to speed so much the development of this tank. They should had given the panzer IV total priority in 42. It is incorrect to say that the IV's cannon was unefective against the T-34 in use at that time. The Panther was amazing but incredibily expensive and when rushed in to service very, very mechanically troubled.

I recommend reading Osprey's Panther vs T-34. Not a excellent book, but it does managed to convey the point: The Panther was amazing, but it simply consumed too much effort from the german war machine. When it was needed most ( meaning Kursk in 1943, the last time the germans had a reall chance of changing the war's outcome) they not only were not ready, but in fact prevented the germans from having hundreds of much needed Stugs and Panzer IVs in place.

The problems is not that the germans failed in using the Panther properly. In reality , the tank in itself was so amazing, and because of that so complicate and expensive, that there were never enough of them available. Stugs and late Panzers IV were much more cost efficient especially in 1943

 

[SoD Stitch]

They machined the turret!?!?!?!?!? Wow! That must have been expensive and inefficient. I would have guess that it would have been cast, not machined.

Unfortunately, the Germans tended to overdesign and overengineer their equipment, so they did produce some amazing equipment, as RATHED said, but the Germans were more in need of quantity rather than quality, especially toward the end of the War. IIRC, the resources used to construct one Tiger tank could also be used to construct 3 PzKpfw IV's or 4 Sturmgeschütz III's.

Also, the infrared system was, obviously, fairly inefficient, being a first-generation IR system; the only person who could use it was the tank commander, and he had to be exposed to use it. He had to relay targeting info to the driver and the gunner, and it's range was only 500-600m (which was adequate for night-fighting tactics). In addition to tank-mounted IR systems, the Germans were apparently experimenting with a portable IR system mounted on their MP44/StG 44 assault rifle; as JugBR said, the Germans were years ahead of their time, but it didn't help them win WWII. Go here for an outside link to more info on German WWII IR systems.

BTW, CB, I love the pictures of the interior of the MAN factory; you always see lots of pictures of tanks, but not how they're made.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Just wonderful

Great stuff CB!

Thank you very much.

Well, the Panther have trouble specially in teh "D" variant as we will found later, but once cleaned up in later models it become a fearsome combat vehicle, expensive and more complicated than the allied designs that is sure, but that is hardly a new....Isnt a Mercedes more costly than a Chevrolet or a Lada ?

Engine and automotive.

The ausf D was powered by the Maybach Hl 230, 12 cilinders in V at 65º liquid coooled petrol feed engine.

Displacement was 23,3 liters and the compresion ratio 7 to 1. The indicated fuel was in the order of 75-80 octanes. The maximum power was 700 hp at 3000 rpm. With this figure the Panther was capable to reach 56 km/h in paved road. However to reduce the strain in the final drive ( always a touchy component of the Pz V) the recomended maximum rpm were 2500, in the final gear that allowed 46 km/h, not bad at all for a 43 tons tank.

The gearbox was a semiautomatic Zahndradfrabrik (ZF) AK-7-200 with seven gears forward and two reverse. The driver had the tipical steering levers to operated the tank.

Torsion bars were the choice for the suspension, it wasnt the first time this system was used in a german tank, but the ones applied to the Panther were the larger and most efficient. Its long travel swinging arms provide a very confortable ride and increase speed over bad terrain.

Its had is disadvantages however, the first and more obvious is the costly manufacturing, other was the increased height of the vehicle to 2,85 meters.

very tiring work...to change the internal interleaved wheel, this was necessary when the rubber worn out, it was need to remove first the external wheels, use the manual jack as in the picture and later remove it by means of special extrators. It take time.

And changing the battle tracks, not so difficult but still a healty job for 3 men.

Ground pressure ( with tracks sunk 10 cm) was merely 0,88 km/square centimeter, an excellent figure for such a heavy vehicle.

 

[m kenny]

as JugBR said, the Germans were years ahead of their time, but it didn't help them win WWII. Go here for an outside link to more info on German WWII IR systems.

The link contains fictional accounts of Allied tanks being destroyed by IR Panthers and is years out of date. The Allies had their own IR System but. like Germany, did not want to use it in case it fell into enemy hands. The British had stockpiles of their own IR Detectors waiting to be issued the moment the Germans used it in combat. They had the solution to this 'wonder-weapon' before it was even used!

See:
Axis History Forum • View topic - What are the Germany's "Wonder Weapons"?


Extract:
The Germans had a world beating lead in chemistry. This gave them the edge in some fields such as nerve agents, which they alone had developed. However everyone had infrared, even low-tech types like Australia, Russia and Italy. (Australia and Italy had break-the-beam type harbour protection infrared and the Russians had a useable driving system in 1940 called DUDKA).

Only the Germans had infrared image forming equipment (of such quality = range – due to their chemical knowledge making the filters and layering phosphors coatings for receivers, etc) to be able to use it for weapons control for AFV's. Everyone else had picture forming driving systems suitable for 30 – 50 meters.
The Germans knew the west had IR and specifically forbad its use on the Western front. The west knew the Germans had IR and went specifically looking for it. Had the Germans used IR Panthers on the western front the British alone had thousands of IR detectors ready to hand out.

The British were the first to mount their TABBY system on a Sten gun in June '44 (Source PRO, dated blue print). Whereas the Germans only saw the need for small arms infrared in October '44 at which point the VAMPIRE was designed (source: Dr Gaertner, head of WaPruf 8/I Optics, report to American interrogator's June 1945). Neither of which saw much action. The American M3 Sniperscope was first used on Okinawa to great effect (they claim 30% of all small arms casualties due to it's use) against the Japanese in 1945. (5 years before Korea).

I always get a laugh from the American code for their infrared, which was NAN or NANCY. The thought of all those Nancy boys blazing away!

The real lead the Germans had in infrared which got the allies hot and bothered after the war (apart from the quality of the picture forming gear) was the industrial sized production of Pb (lead) crystals which have a certain thermal detection window. Very exciting in 1945, less so now.

If you have an interest in Television you may be interested to know the first televised infrared image was by the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird in Leads in 1926. The astonished crowd at the demonstration had to be dispersed by mounted police. That was 10 years before the 1936 AEG infrared tube.

 

[CharlesBronson]

I did not create this topic to talk about chemistry or television, I create this to talk about tanks.

If somebody want to discuss thos eissues I kindly suggest to create other thread.
Nobody likes the topic snatching so please dont.

Thanks you.

 

[m kenny]

I did not create this topic to talk about chemistry or television, I create this to talk about tanks.

And as someone posted a link that claimed (falsely) that a plattoon of Comet tanks was wiped out by IR Panthers (they are all tanks aren't they?) I reserve the right to put the situation right.

I note this was posted earlier:

Also, the infrared system was, obviously, fairly inefficient, being a first-generation IR system; the only person who could use it was the tank commander, and he had to be exposed to use it. He had to relay targeting info to the driver and the gunner, and it's range was only 500-600m (which was adequate for night-fighting tactics). In addition to tank-mounted IR systems, the Germans were apparently experimenting with a portable IR system mounted on their MP44/StG 44 assault rifle; as JugBR said, the Germans were years ahead of their time, but it didn't help them win WWII. Go here for an outside link to more info on German WWII IR systems.


and you posted after it . Why did you not say to him :

I did not create this topic to talk about chemistry or television

 

[Matt308]

I don't think we have gotten off track here CB... yet. mkenny's post was relevant.

 

[CharlesBronson]

For me is completely irrelevant, but everybody could have its own opinion.

and you posted after it . Why did you not say to him :

Because Jug did not post about television or chemistry as you did, and by the way if you think I going to waste time and bandwidth arguing with you... you are wrong.

My objetive behind this topic is made it the best possible resource in ww2aircraft.net for the famous german tank, hardly I can achieve that with "off-topicking"

 

[m kenny]

As you wish. Your photo is of one of the Panthers (433) taken at Kursk. The photo shows it when it arrrived at Bovington as a present from the Russians.
The Russian study of the 31 Panther hulks left on the battlefield found 22(71%) were penetrated by AP shot and that 45% of the tanks burned when hit. However 100% of those hit in the engine compartment burned.

 

[Matt308]

Mkenny please check out my PM.

 

[JugBR]

eh argentino, tah mandando muito bem aqui, parabens !

panther couldnt won the war, but he won some good battles.

 

[CharlesBronson]

eh argentino, tah mandando muito bem aqui, parabens !

That is just my stile dear Jug.8)

Dubious debut, The Kursk bulge

Despite Guderian's warnings, Hitler's desire to employ these tanks in the up-coming "Operation Zitadelle" (the assault on the Kursk salient) conducted to a disaster.

The operation has been explained much better in others places and I have no intention to repeat here. It worth to mention however that the pincer movement planed against the soviet defences was defeated by a strong complex of mines, trenches, fortifications and AT gun nest. Most of the initial german success was obtained by the Heavy Tiger batallions wich engaged and destroyed a large amount of antitanks guns and artillery, this completely vindicated the concept of a heavy breaktrough tank.

Its minor "brother" did not repeat that outstanding performance.

Not fully developed Panther were simply too ready to mechanical faults and the engine easily over-heated: of the 200 Panthers the 4th Panzer Armee had on July 4th 1943 (most in the ad-hoc formed 10th Panzerbrigade with panzer abteilung 51 and 52 and the others assigned to several companies of privileged units such as the GD and the IInd SS Panzerkorps's divisions) only 43 were still functional the following day (note that Panther's problems were known as the large complement of tanks to the two battalions was seen as remedy to this).

Grossdeutschland Panzerregiment reported to have lost six of its brand new Panthers while moving towards the attack positions because of technical failures. In the mid-day of July 4th the same unit had a quarter of its Panther broken-down and by July 5th it has lost the 80% of its Panthers! Gefreiter Werner Kriegel of Pz.Abt. 51 remembers:


"[...] By the evening of 5th, Pz.Abt. 51 had only 22 Panthers operationa. Some 28 were totally destroyed, the rest damaged. My comrades complained about the final final drives and of their engines overheating. The engine compartiment was very tight because of UK equipment (diving equipement) ... On the 8th of July we again headed for Oboyan south of Kursk.


Our tank received a hit form a tank gun at the commander's cupola. We carried on the attack with an open hatch and a cracked cupola. My commander shill has the shell ... We lost one tank to one of those heavy assault guns [SU-152], the mantlet was simply penetrated. We also met American tanks [M3A3 Lee-Grant] which were no match for us ... We destroyed a number of T-34s at ranges well over 2,500 meters ..."

A very interesting picture. A captured Panther ausf D in the bulge with the inscription "tiger" in the glacis plate.

I wonder if this explain the large amount of "Tigers" claimed as destroyed for the Kursk defences, more than 200 when only there was 147 operative Tigers and less than 30 were actually knocked out.

 

[Matt308]

She sure was a tall tank for those open plains. I would have guessed that more AT weapons like the SU-152 and IS-2 would have played a more decisive role against these limited Panthers.

Were the IS-2's below not available in sufficient numbers?

 

[CharlesBronson]

You mean for the Kursk battle ? the answer is no, the IS-2 entered in service in mid 1944.
The heaviest tank used by the russian in the bulge was the KV-1S. But the most dangerous were the heavy self propelled howitzers .

 

[Matt308]

Okay thanks.