what were the panther tank flaw?

[Michael Kenny]

but you seem to quote me often.

There is a simple fix. Stop making so many errors of fact. If you are 100% dependent on Google then you are immediately at a fatal disadvantage.

[Michael Kenny]

, because nobody past Spielberger who somehow dug this report out of somewhere does.

The Spielberger account is a problem for some people. As he is one of 'them' they can not come straight out and say he lied/made it up so they try other more subtle ways to undermine. The method above is implying the original Panther report might not exist

You mentioned the Panther...and perhaps...are working on a conspiracy too??? 'Them'? Sounds ominous....post more! I studied abnormal psychology. Just saying...

How does that sit with your earlier claim:

I actually have you on ignore,

[Gorque]

So, if it wasn't for its weight, due to the additional frontal armor, which wreaked havoc upon its suspension and transmission, the Panther was basically a medium tank, yes?

Panther's transmission was designed for a 35ton vehicle. Yes, frontal armour was increased from 60 to 80mm but this does not explain the increase in weight.

A while ago I drew this front armour plate in Solidworks and added a 20mm plate. The resultant weight increase was ~364kg for a steel with typical density. It is just an approximation and not extremely detailed due to lack of drawings, but allows to discard a 10 ton increase in weight due to extra armour.

Maybe the 35 ton initial datum was very optimistic. I have discussed this another person with ample access to German documentation and in his opinion, the increase in weight is due to the huge number of changes made to the design before it went into production.

You'd need to strip most of the armor off the panther to get it down to the 32 ton medium tank category. It could never achieve that.
Some books seem to suggest that just the uparmoring of the glacis from 60 to 80, and the turret front from 80 to 100, resulted in all the panthers problems, and the weight going up from the designed 35 tons to 46 tons. This can't be right. The uparmoring probably only involved about 2 tons.

The SU100 glacis went up from 45mm to 75, that's plus 30mm. And it got a few hundred kg heavier gun plus an extra armored commanders pulpit and full vision cupola. Weight increased 2.4 tons.
The M4A3E2 Sherman jumbo was mega uparmored. It got 40mm more on glacis, nose AND all hull sides. It's turret got a massive extra 100mm front, back and sides. Weight up 6 tons.

So I can't envisage more than 2 tons being involved in the panthers uparmoring.
Would it have been a great tank at 44 tons? No. Of course it would've helped a little, but all the original problems would've remained.
It was basically a too large, long, high, wide afv, that could never have been less than 40 tons without de-armouring it. Look at the huge amount of armor the jumbo would have to shed, to lose 6 tons.

Yes. But frontal armor is just part of the overall weight issue. People do focus on total weight, but where the weight is factors in also.

Thanks all for the replies.

Some further questions then. Was the Panther's dimensions larger than the typical medium tank? Could this help in explaining the weight, i.e. longer, wider therefore need to use more armor. Did the torsion bar suspension and inter-leaved road wheels add significantly to its weight as compared other types of suspension?

[Yoozername]

The Soviet 85mm HE round

Characteristics
Caliber: 85mm (3.35 in)
Weight of complete round: 15.1kg (33.22 lbs)
Weight of projectile, as fired: 9.58kg (21.11 lbs)
Weight of projectile filler: 0.78kg (1.71 lbs)

Again, we see that bam is incorrect with his premise regarding what 'doubling' means. It is about 13% more. And this 'proper' WWII medium tank bam-approved caliber weapon, barely compares to a 7,5 cm KWK 40 weapon in penetration.

He is also wrong as far as comparing KWK 42 to KWK 36. But, I guess it works like this, a yahoo makes claims, and then other posters have to correct them.

I also think his 'tanks fired HE as a majority' claim, while possibly true in some cases, is not as skewed as it might seem. See the thread I linked to. German load out for tanks in WWII (at least in the later years when most AFV had a 75mm or greater weapon), was 50:50 AP:HE. In the case of panzerjager, it was 75:25, AP to HE (or HEAT).

So, I hope this puts his 'unique' insight into what a medium tank should shoot in WWII to bed.

[bam]

1. HE shells are actually the majority of shells fired by tanks, thus important. Supporting infantry requires big HE capability.
I don't comprehend what u mean by "why is "HE capability" a primary indicator of HE shell performance?" Obviously the size of the HE charge is indicative of the power of the explosion it causes. An 88mm sprenggranate had nearly double the HE of the panther kwk42 round.

Double? WooHoo! Makes a bigger noise too!! BAM!!!!

I was hoping someone would call you on this. I can post pictures if you need.

88mm
HE shell weight
9 Kg.
HE content
0.74-0.785 Kg

I SAID NEARLY DOUBLE, NOT EXACTLY DOUBLE. You wilfully misquote to make your put down. Calm down. Your tone is verging on hysterical.

And yes, I did read your thread about the 88 gun as a panzerjaeger. It is talking about similar themes as us. It was informative. But It was also full of your usual personal insults and baiting other members, it actually gets nasty angry at times,makes hard reading. Please, we are all here for a discussion. I don’t want to crush all opposition, I want a conversation.

Regarding the 88 for panzerjaeger, as I said in one of my first post, the kwk 42 is more a panzerjaeger gun than an mbt gun, as the main role of pz.jg. is fighting tanks, whereas the main rounds fired by mbt are HE. So it’s not the same debate as putting the 88 in a panther.

[bam]

I looked up the content in this when I made the Nearly Double statement :
German Explosive Ordnance (Projectiles and Projectile Fuzes) - Department of the Army Technical Manual TM-9-1985-3. 1953. p. 445 https://archive.org/details/TM9-1985-3.

900 g filler.
That’s the figure I was working with. I will check other sources when I get a chance.

[bam]

>And again, will you ever acknowledge and answer your erroneous statement about kwk42 outranging the laughable 88. You still evade that.
You nixed my whole argument, called it laughable, then you put up just one fact as justification, and it’s plainly wrong.

[Yoozername]

>And again, will you ever acknowledge and answer your erroneous statement about kwk42 outranging the laughable 88. You still evade that.
You nixed my whole argument, called it laughable, then you put up just one fact as justification, and it’s plainly wrong.

So, you make incorrect statements and unless people correct them, they are evading?

It was touched upon in that linked thread also?

1. The 8,8 cm KWK had a greater recoil throw than the 7,5 cm KWK 42.
2. The 8,8 cm KWK had greater Kinetic Energy with BOTH it's armor piercing AND high explosive rounds than a 7,5 cm KWK 42
3. Actual usage of the ratio of armor piercing (to include ALL types) follows a disproportionate amount of AP:HE in the AP favor
4. The Germans clearly learned their lessons in 1943 BEFORE producing JagdPanzer and went with the proven 7,5 cm 'L48' and 'L70' weapons along with the 8,8 cm L71 weapons. They even stopped producing the Tiger I about midway through 1944.
5. The 8,8 cm KWK 36 would not fit in a Panzer IV and it would beg reasoning why it would be put in a Panther. A StuK version was never produced and would equally beg reasoning why it would be created in the first place.
6. Jagdpanzers were based on armor defeating weapons. The 7,5 cm L70 was the natural choice. If a greater HE solution was needed, the 105 mm class with a 30 pound class projectile was the better way to go. Hence the StuH III. Also, see the sherman 105mm. HL or Hollow Charge projectiles from 4 inch diameter bore weapons were lethal enough even in WWII.

Basically, the 8,8 cm KWK is NOT a great tank gun. It was somewhat of a best choice at the time (FlaK already developed somewhat), worked as a specialized 'break-through' weapon for it's heyday, and was dropped.

[Yoozername]

Here is a primary source...meaning a German document....Geschoss Ringbuch...

You would need to go up to about a 10 cm HE shell to get this magic doubling number spec....



BTW, focusing on just HE weight is also wrong. There is a relationship between type of filling thickness of shell walls, strength of shell walls, etc.

[bam]

I agree, and the 88 had nearly double the weight of iron shrapnel as the kwk 42.

The 88s recoil is something I hadn't considered, and that would be problematic in the panther. Agreed. Unless the recoil cylinder is enlarged? And a muzzle brake? The Germans had paper-panzer aspirations to fit an 88 into the panther after 1945, so it might have been possible.

And again you are still not acknowledging your strange statement about the kwk42 outranging the laughable 88. What did you mean by it? Or are you just a so infallible?

[Yoozername]

The 88s recoil is something I hadn't considered, and that would be problematic in the panther. Agreed. Unless the recoil cylinder is enlarged? And a muzzle brake? The Germans had paper-panzer aspirations to fit an 88 into the panther after 1945, so it might have been possible.

The 88 mm KWK 36 already had a muzzle brake. In fact, it was actually needed in the Tiger I to fire, and was somewhat of a secret development at the time. So, explain what you mean by that?

So, you base your argument on a paper-panzer? Is that a WOT terminology?

[Yoozername]

ARMOR Penetration
I believe these are from Jentz and his source is primary German

Range

100 m
500 m
1000m
1500 m
20OO m

Panther/Tiger
Pzgr.39

6 8 kg /10.8 Kg
935 m/6 790 M/s



138 mm/ 120 mm
124 mm/ 110 mm
111 mm/ 100 mm
99 mm/ 91 mm
89 mm/ 84 mm

[Michael Kenny]

The 88 mm KWK 36 already had a muzzle brake. In fact, it was actually needed in the Tiger I to fire, and was somewhat of a secret development at the time.

Bit of stretch to say 'secret' based on a single photo where the muzzle brake has been airbrushed out.

https://ww2.blogberth.com/2018/07/10/ti ... 01-in-fro/

[Yoozername]

Some accuracy comparisons based on dispersion and range estimation

[hesh1380]

When compared to the VK 30.01 D, what were the advantages and disadvantages of each tank?