Best Tank in Normandy

Very true.

 

The Panther is argueably one of the finest medium(heavies) of the war.
That long-barrelled 75mm was a tank-killer til the war's end... and I believe the French was suitably impressed and used it in their tank-corps post-WW2 as well.
I always questioned the economy of production and complexity of the interleaved road-wheels... just as I do with the Tiger I/II. Perhaps this was the only solution to ease the footprint of such a heavy 'AFV.'

Tim

 

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There also was the small problem of supplies, tiger armor was high alloy cold rolled also it needed a lot of specialized labor to assemble one ,more craftmanship than mass production
tungsten , nickel , wolfram and manganese were dolled out from shrinking stockpiles so that by 44 German armor was not what it used to be due to production short cuts and shortages also the factories had less and less germans workers but more and more forced labor , not the most efficient or dedicated group

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So which was the most easily mass produced German tank?

 

I think a lot depends on what you count as a tank, but the StuG III has to be one of the most economical of the German AFVs.

 

Tank as a tank ,most mass produced was PzIV. StugIII was excelent AFV,low cost,easy to produce,and effective in many roles.

Panther is not bad tank. But it is heawy tank by all standards except Germans,so it shoud not be treated as medium,and compare with sherman and T-34.

 

I see. Thanks.

 

The Pz IV was considered to be outdated as soon as the Germans encounted the T-34. But they continued making it because they had nothing better to replace it with until the Panther came along.

Even when the Panther was in full production they continued making PV IV's to fill numbers because Panther production just couldn't keep up with demand.

From 1937 to 1945 some 8,500 PV Iv's were built.
From 1942 to 1945 over 6,000 Panthers were built.

Which shows how much importance the Germans placed on the Panther.

 

Could a Panzer V be knocked out by a fighters .50 caliber machine guns?

 

It's possible, the top armour is pretty thin and a 50 cal could make a hell of a mess of the engine which would disable the tank. If it starts a fire then it could destroy the tank completley.

 

I would think that you as a pilot would have to begin your strafing run from aways away and consistently hit the tank.

 

Quite right.

 

I don't think it's likely. Some figures I've found googling put the pentration of the .50 at around .9 inches (or around 22mm) at 200 yards decreasing to .5 inch (12.7mm) at 600 yards with the Panther A upper hull armour being 16mm, however this does mean that the .50 would have to be striking the armour perpendicular (So the attacking aircraft would be in a vertical dive above the tank) in order to penetrate it which would happen somewhere around the 400 yard mark, of course in this case the gunfire would be the least of the crew's worries compared to the bloody great plane about to hit them!

Once you get a shallower angle the effectiveness of the deck armour increases, I think it'd be pushing it even at 200 yards and that would be if a pilot was able to go that close and that low, it would be extremely risky.

Please, no-one bring up the "bouncing-bullets" either... :roll:

 

Panther KO

Any chance we can have another go at the 'Apple in the Turret' myth? :roll:

 

Anyone know if the speed of the aircaft (possibly diving) has much effect on the velocity/power of the bullet ? I remember reading about horseback archery producing far greater armour penetration than stationary archery - could this be a similar thing ?

 

really?

I wouldn't have thought it would make much difference when you compare the speed of arrow in flight to that of a horse

FNG

 

Aircraft speed does affect alot in gun penetration abilitys,specialy in cannons,coz most of 20mm cannons was low velocity gun (more like mortars).

 

I was thinking more that a tank could be disabled because of engine damage. The rear deck has large unarmoured engine vents, which are vunerable to air attack. Damage to the engine or just the cooling system could knock out the tank.

 

Thre can be little doubt that a shell from a battleship or even a heavy cruiser could flip a Tiger over, but so could either a bomb (perhaps as small as a 250 lb. one could probably do the same. ) Of course, a rocket armed fighter bomber such as the ubiquitous Typhoon could make mincemeat out of anything the Germans put into the field and did, on a daily basis too !

 

Also, of course, the interleaved wheels proved to be a big problem for German tank crews in the Russian winters. This is because mud and leaves would freeze between the wheels.

One of the Panther's few flaws ,was those models that were equipped with a rounded undersurface to the mantlet. Until this was overcome by redesigning a mantlet with a "chin" running along it's bottom edge, even relatively small calibre shells could ricochet off the rounded face of the lower part of the mantlet and then penetrate the vehicle's roof, often killing the driver and other crew members in the front compartment.
Check out pictures to see the re-design.