Panther Vs T-34 - superior hunter ?

I think that Panther was a typical German design which borrowed some features from T-34/76:
- sloped armor,
- wide tracks,
- out of the body long canon - the first one for Germans.

- It possessed better suspension, but very unreliable.
- More powerful engine, but for heavier body and far less reliable (in combination with transmission).
- It was petroleum against the less flammable diesel of the T-34.
- Regardless of wider tracks and better off road capabilities comparing to other German tanks, it is inferior in this domain to the Russian T-34/85.
- The front armor was sloped, well placed and ... not always accurately produced - the required metallurgy alloys at the end of the war where not always achievable in the poorly logistics f the bombarded factories.
- The training of the new German crews at the end of the war was also very poor - see the Heinz Guderian memories.
- One must to note also the taller silhouette of the Panther.
- More complicate for production.

Against all that - superior optics, better radio, excellent canon, superior frontal armor, better crew compartment and somehow ergonomics.


Yes in frontal engagment the Panther must be preferred at the end of the WW2, if:
- the crew was not a newcommer one,
- the Panther crew saw the Russians first (lower silhouette of T-34/85 hinders that),
- the distance is a long one - and preferably one must have a correctly produced Panther which succeeded to come to the battlefield without problems (mood or technical problems).
- But be aware of flaming petrol engines - the hit on a diesel one is not so problematic.


That's all what I can say up to now - a comparison with many IF's

 

Yes, but the Panther would have had two stugs and a hetzer with it, as well as infantry armed with 'Fausts and 'Shrecks.
If Im not mistaken, and Im not, there is a reason the Russians lost several times as many men as Germany, and almost half of all casualties of all sides combined.
Go ahead, have your 7 tanks. Also have your 6 casualties.

 

Panther overall is a better machine in my opinion. Better gun, better armor, not sure how fast it went though. 1 vs 1 Panther wins, but only 6,000 panther tanks produced during ww2 and around 60,000 t34's produced. :/

 

This is an unfruitful comparison. Superior tactics almost always trump equipment or numbers especially in defensive battles. Against combined-arms defense the Germans themselves fared poorly.

 

One should compare monthly production numbers: T-34 monthly production was about 1,200 units, while Panther planned monthly production consisted of 600 units. However, due to the fact that the Germans would have had to cancel Panzer IV production and retool their factories for precious months, even in 1944 they were producing 300-350 panthers per month plus 300 panzer's IV.

The Panther was a cost effective tank*, much cheaper than the Tiger I and II. While it might have been more expensive than the T-34, considering the needs of the German panzer divisions (which numbered 35), a supply of 7,200 panthers per year would have been more than enough: 35 panzer divisions x 200 tanks per division = 7,000 tanks. Theoretically, Germany could have converted all their panzer divisions into panther equipped divisions in about a year of full panther production. By mid 1944 the Germans had over 2000 panther in their divisions, or about 60 panthers in every panzer division.

And the Panther wasn't a medium tank nor a heavy tank, the Panther was world's first main battle tank.

*Let's compare prices:

panther - 120,000 marks
panzer IV - 100,000 marks
Tiger - 300,000

Out of these 3, the Panther was the most cost effective design. Source: wikipedia's page on the panther.

 

It is actually relevant: if the decision to make cheap bad tanks was optimal giving the circumstances that the USSR were in, why they lost so many men? Good strategic decisions don't tend to produce 30 million military casualties. Some have criticized the Soviet focus on producing many tanks (they were the largest producer of tanks in the war) while neglecting basic needs of the armed forces, like ammunition.

Being fair to the USSR: it was a country that was relatively backward compared to modern western countries, like Germany, UK and the US, so they tended to have armed forces with less resources and therefore, suffer greater casualties.

 

I found this berating attitude towards the Soviets lacking in objective rigor.
Soviet tactical short-comings at the small-unit level should not be treated in the same brush with technological issues, nor should early-war strategic stumbling confused with the Red Army of 1944-45.
Strategically, the posture of the Soviets was far from optimal.How were the Soviet defeats in the early war substantially differ from the routing of the French in a few months? How was the Allied performance in the hedgerows of Normandy better than the Red Army fighting through East Prussia or Berlin?
The case could be made that the Soviets were superior to the Allies in making breakthroughs, river-crossing operations, and sealing encirclements. I do not agree or disagree with them. But the view that the Russians were militarily primitive is not one that stands to scrutiny.

 

Anyone that thinks the Soviet Union backward knows nothing of the theories of Tukachevski et al, of deep battle and has certainly not read any of the writings of German generals that felt the Soviet soldier highly capable in many ways. All the combatant countires of WWII lacked in some respect. Many German generals knew little of the effective use of armor and the Luftwaffe was used badly from 1940 on.

 

But if we look a little further down at: Panther tank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which seems to be your source we see:

Furthermore the Panther made more extensive use of slave labor and it's also noted that the above costs don't include the gun or radios. One would expect the Panther's gun to be significantly more expensive than any on the PzIV's. This is one of those areas that I would be extremely careful about drawing definitive answeres from wiki.

That's highly debateable. I believe the Germans considered it a medium tank and if you go with functionality I think stronger cases can be made for the T-34 or the M-4 or possibly even the MkIV.

 

I have to wonder if the notion of "cost effective" includes maintenance. The Panther was a high maintenance vehicle and early models were, as we all know, plagued by numerous problems. Factoring in the Panthers lost due to breakdowns and those returned to Germany for rehab, factor in the time necessary to accomplish routine maintenance compared to comparable vehicles, factor in the frequency of maintenance and I don't think one comes away with a truly cost effective vehicle.

The Panther was a 20 ton tank which swelled in size as Hitler got more nervous about the potency of the anti-tank guns on the eastern front. It was to become the tank which would fill the Panzer divisions for the years to come. Calling it a main battle tank could be considered accurate but the world's first main battle tank would have to be the Sherman. If you are going to extend this term to WWII then the Sherman filled this role first.

 

Define military primitive. I meant that the USSR was "primitive", in the same sense as Mexico is primitive relative to the US or Canada today. It was a country that wasn't as developed as Germany, UK and the US, as result their armed forces didn't have the same resources as those countries. The strategic doctrine of the armed forces of the USSR was anything but primitive. This explains why the USSR suffered 30 million military casualties: they couldn't substitute labor for capital (using the terms used by Niall Ferguson).

 

In terms of average GDP yes. In terms of absolute output, level of scientific sophistication, the number of population used to operate machinery, than no. The Soviets, with lend-lease materiel, was better armed and equipped than the Wehrmacht after 1943. I will submit to you that the problem facing Russian commanders was the lack of competent junior officers and staff officers to synchronize operations. It was not that the Russians had no weapons, it was that too often the weapons were in the wrong place to be of help.

Consequently, when Soviet senior commanders successfully predicted Wehrmacht's move, their counter-manoeuvers and offensives were devastating.

 

Although a T-34-85 was still not a match for a Panther, the improved firepower made it much more effective than before. The decision to improve on the existing design instead of tooling up for a new one allowed the Soviets to manufacture tanks in such numbers that the difference in capabilities could be considered insignificant. In May 1944, the Wehrmacht had only 304 Panthers operating on the Eastern Front, while the Soviets had increased T-34-85 production to 1,200 tanks per month.

T-34

 

The labor force working in industry in the Soviet Union was much smaller than in Germany during the Russo-German war. The production of industrial commodities, like iron, steel, aluminium, copper, etc, was even proportionally smaller. In 1943, German pig iron production was 6 times greater than Soviet production, Steel production was 4 times greater, as aluminum production. In per capita terms the difference was even greater.

Level of scientific sophistication? The Germans produced 31 nobel prizes in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine from 1901 to 1933, while the US only produced 6 and the USSR, about ZERO.

A comparison: Brazil today is an economy larger than that of the United Kingdom (measured at PPP rates), Brazil's production of cars, trucks, steel, machinery, etc, is also greater than that of the United Kingdom, Brazil also has a larger number of university students. But the United Kingdom is a country of greater level of development than Brazil, as result, in a war of Brazil and the United Kingdom, it is expected that Brazilian forces to be numerically superior, as Brazil's population is 3 times greater, while per capita income is about 35% of UK's, so this numerically larger force will have less equipment per soldier (less tanks, aircraft, etc) and of worse quality, as result, Brazil will lose more soldiers than UK in the event of a war.

The difference in degree of development between the USSR and Germany at the start of WW2 was comparable or greater than the difference of Brazil and Britain today.

Let's see: you say that the Red Army was better equipped than the Werhmacht after 1943. You need to prove that assertion with data on:

- Number of tanks per 1000 soldiers
- Number of guns per 1000 soldiers
- Number of artillery shells per 1000 soldiers/month

The data I have suggests that the Germans had more tanks per 1000 soldiers in mid 1944, more ammunition shells per 1000 soldiers and more guns per 1000 soldiers, but these guns had severe ammunition shortage, also German guns were of larger caliber and more durable. In 1944, German production of AA, AT and Field Guns was 90,782 guns while Soviet production was of 42,600 guns (see: Soviet War Production). German ammunition production in 1944 totaled 323,401 thousands rounds of artillery, mortar and rockets, while Soviet production was of 178,300 thousand rounds of the same categories of ammunition, and the Soviet army was larger than the German army, as result, the per capita supply of ammunition and guns was much greater in the German army. Germany produced less tanks, but the durability of these tanks was greater in the German army than the T-34s in the Soviet army, that lasted about 3 months and them broke as the transmission and engine pieces were badly made and not durable.

These differences explain why the Germans traded 4-5 soldiers per casualty with the Red Army, even when they were outnumbered 2-3 to 1. Unless you assume that all the Soviet junior officers had severe mental problems or that the Wehrmacht consisted of supermen.

 

There is a Brazilian who has swamped AHF in the last year with posts in this area. Overkill do you know him?
He used to use the same argument about Nobel Prizes as you. Small world isn't it?

 

Is that so?

Page 259 Spielberger, Panther and Its Variants:

Meeting in Berlin 23rd January 1945.

Present : Speer, Guderian, Porsche, Maybach. (+ others)

'Prior to the 1945 Eastern Offensive there have been 500 defective final drives in the Pz IV. From the Panther 370 and from the Tiger roughly 100..............................an orderly utiization of tanks is impossible............the troops lose confidence.................and abandon whole vehicles just because of this problem'

 

Just incase anybody's wondering, engines & transmissions don't last long without proper amounts of lubrication and maintenance, neither of which was available to German vehicles in suitable amounts since mid 1944.

As a result operational percentages for all vehicles plummitted as compared to previous years; this is esp. noticable when comparing the operational percentages of vehicles having previously demonstrated very high reliability, such as the Pz.IV for example.

 

Source please.

Source PLS. Certainly this would have been true in some fields but in others Soviet equipement was arguably at least the equal of that of Germany.

That's a pretty limited selection of items. And it's choice could reflect organizational considerations rather than supply.

Soviet junior officers were often under rather severe limitations as to what they could do. I also suspect that their training was not the best in the world at that point either.

 

Considering how each AFV was used in combat, the Panther seems the better "hunter". T-34's, as well as Shermans, were used in massed formations to overwhelm the enemy. By late 1943 Panther's were used predominately to slow or stop Soviet/Allied attacks, often from ambush.