Nothing bigger than the Panzer IV and those early versions were barely 20t, the few Pz III available were probably heavier at around 22t. AFAIK the only "Heavy" used before late 1942, when the first Tigers appeared, were the 24/26 tonn Nb.Fz. that did see combat in Norway in very limited numbers (IIRC there were only 3 of them).
KV prototype's first actual combat use was probably at Summa between the 17th & 19th of December 1939, against the Finnish. ~A
They tried to field a "heavy" tank in Norway in 1940, but only 3 out of the total of five that were built were deployed. Neubaufahrzeug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If you look closely, that supposedly heavy tank doesnt even have the Armor of a PzIV, and it weighs less than a Stug F, and as much as the PzIIIL, which was the heaviest of the 50mm armed PzIII. Its actually lighter than the IIIN, which was armed with the same short 75mm gun. It is anything but a heavy, its just very tall and appears to be heavy. Only a handful of Stug were used in Poland, and they were nothing like the Stug we know, they had just enough side armor to resist a rifle, and the front armor was half of what the later Stug had. It was armed with a short 75. The heaviest tank the Germans had was the 50mm armed PIII, which was roughly equal to the T-34. The III could take down a 34 from 500+m, while the short 76 of the T-34 could barely return fire. The 76mm was capable of about 65mm of penetration against 350BHN armor at 500m, while the IIIG had 60mm of face hardened 280BHN armor, which is nearly twice as resistant as 350BHN. The T-34 had 45mm of 350BHN armor, which was highly sloped, but because of its poor quality, the supposedly weak 50mm could really mess it up. The main reason why most people think the 50mm was not useful against the T-34 or KV is because the penetration charts for German guns are against 240BHN armor, which is the highest quality and only found on American tanks. The 350BHN armor of the T-34 is less than half as resistant, so you can see how the 50mm can penetrate the 45mm of armor the T-34 uses, even at 60 degrees. The PIIIG was anything but a light tank at the time, it was the only tank outside of Russia that could penetrate a Russian KV until the long Barrel PzIV showed up in 1942. In fact, Michael Whitman continued to rack up kills in the PzIII even after the introduction of the Tiger. He was actually deployed to a Tiger company and was forced to use their PzIII which was meant for recon. He continued to rack up kills with it until he finally got a Tiger in 1943. So the III was still a viable weapon even into 1943 when it was pulled from the front lines and re-issued as a command vehicle for company commanders. The Panzer III is totally underestimated, while most German "cats" are vastly overestimated. The III was outclassed only after the Sherman showed up in numbers, as the far superior quality of the Sherman armor made it far more difficult to penetrate than the T-34. The Sherman was practically immune to the 50mm from the front. Even after the Sherman showed up in 1942, the III was still more than effective on the Russian front, and as I said before, it served until 1943, when the T-34/85 was introduce that winter. The III actually stayed in front line service after the King Tiger was introduced in august 1943, so it had a very long and successful life.
You should note that the Pz IIIs fielded in France and Poland however did not carry the 50mm, only the 37mm. The 50mm armed Ausf h model was introduced in September 1941, and then rapidly a retrofit program was initiated. The most powerful tracked anti armour weapon employed in the Polish campaign was the 37mm on the Pz IIIs and Pz35 and 38(t). For France the Skoda 47mm mounted on Pz I chassis (Panzerjaeger 1) was introduced, but certainly doesn't count as a 'heavy tank'. By the German classification, the first heavy tanks to be introduced were captured French models, mostly Char B1 and B1bis, although I don't believe these were significantly used actually during the French campaign. The Neubaufahrzeugs that had been used in Norway were a combination of propaganda and technical experimentation - the idea was to convince the world that the Germans had at least the capacity to make heavy tanks, even though they were really a medium and of no tactical value. Interestingly, the introduction of the KV series was accelerated as a result of the Russians believing this propaganda.
From Wiki; "In the Polish and French campaigns, the Panzer III formed a small part of the German armored forces. Only a few hundred Ausf. A through F were available in these campaigns" They just didn't field it much until later. There were only about four hundred Pz IV too for France, 250 for Poland (available - not sure how many used), but considering them both as the only 'heavy' vehicles, you are right I believe.
Interestingly - stylistic representations of these continued appearing in Soviet anti-tank manuals and pamphlets right up to the end of 1943...
Those sound very, very interesting - you have any links to any of them at all? did they actually push them as a possible enemy to have to deal with, or did it seem like just nobody had bothered to change the picture?
Possibly started as the first then became the second LOL There were pages posted up several years ago in a thread on Feldgrau; might take a while to find tho' They also IIRC were illustrated with stylised Grosstraktor II and III's...which of course the Soviets would have observed in development at Kazan! They of course would thus see the Neubaufahrzeug as a logical progression into service of that whole design stream....!
sounds about right would make a fascinating story though if even as late as 42/43 there were still soviet infantrymen and tank gunners who were being trained to deal with NbFzg even after the tigers were on the scene. Saying that though my first set of training manuals in the eighties still included the sticky bomb in a sock and similar technological wonders