Cover Rapid Reads This short ebook is part of the “Rapid Reads” series on the German Army of World War II. This series, when complete, will offer a comprehensive overview of this absorbing topic, covering the key campaigns, tactics, commanders and equipment of the World War II . We hope you enjoy this Rapid Read and that you will recommend the series to friends and colleagues. You should be able to read one of these handy eBooks in less than an hour. They’re designed for busy people on the go. If you would like to place a review on our website, or with the retailer you purchased it from, please do so. All feedback, positive or negative, is appreciated. All these Rapid Reads plus supplemental materials and ebooks on other military topics are available on our website, www.germanwarmachine.com Technical Specifications (Panther Ausf. A)

General Armament Length: 6.87m (22ft 6in), 8.66m Main gun: Kwk 42 L/70, semi-automatic (28ft 5in) including gun barrel Cartridge: 75mm (2.95in) by 640mm Width: 3.27m (10ft 9in), 3.42m (25.19in) (11ft 3in) with Schürzen side-skirts Barrel length: 5.250m (17ft 3in) Height: 3m (9ft 10in) Rate of fire: 3–5 rounds per minute Weight: 45.5 tonnes (50 tons) Ammunition storage: 40 rounds Crew: 5 (Driver, radio operator, gunner, Panzergranate 39/42 (armor piercing) loader, commander) 39 rounds Sprenggranaten 42 (high explosive) Powerplant Armor penetration: 124mm (4.9in) Engine: HL 230 P30 V-12 at 500m (550 yd), 111mm (4.4in) at (23-litre, 700hp) 1000m (1100yd), 99mm (3.9in) at Fuel: Regular automobile-grade 1500m (1600yd) Fuel consumption (Road): 2.8 liters per Secondary weapons: Two 7.62mm kilometer (1.2 gallons per mile) MG34 Panzerlauf (‘ mounting’) Fuel consumption (cross-country): machine guns. One in the lower hull, 7.3 liters per kilometer (2.6 gallons per one mounted alongside the main gun. mile) Transmission: ZF AK 7-200 Armor synchromesh manual. (Angles from horizontal) Top speed: 55km/h (34mph), 46km/h Hull front: 80mm at 35° (upper (28mph) with engine limited to section) 60mm at -35° (lower section) 2500rpm (a common field modification) Hull sides: 40mm at 40° (upper Track width: 660mm (26in) section) 40mm at 90° (lower section) Hull rear: 40mm at 60° Hull roof: 16mm at 0° Turret front: 100mm on curved plate Turret back and sides: 45 mm at 65° Turret roof: 16mm at 5° A group of Panzergrenadiers accompany a Panther (either an early- production Ausf. G or a late-production Ausf. A) through a cornfield during the summer of 1944. The relatively relaxed attitude of the infantry, coupled with the fact that the tank’s turret cupola and rear hatch are open, suggests that this picture was taken some distance from the frontline. The significance of the tank’s turret number – IN3 – is not known. Many Panzer regiments used their own arbitrary numbering systems towards the end of the war in an attempt to mask the identity of their command . Germany’s Flawed Masterpiece

The Panzerkampfwagen V “Panther” was one of the deadliest tanks of World War II. It was fast, heavily armored, and armed with the powerful kwk 42 75mm gun. These strengths were offset, however, by a number of crippling mechanical problems – the consequence of a long and troubled development period – that prevented it from becoming the war-winning weapon Hitler had hoped for.

5 he best place to begin the story of the is in the Russian town of Mtsensk, some 280km (170 Tmiles) southwest of Moscow. Here the old Orel-Tula highway and the Kursk-Moscow Railway run side by side across deep ravine cut by the Zhusha River. On 4 October 1941, with General ’s Second Panzer Army closing on the town from the southwest, Mtsensk was occupied by a reserve formation under the command of Major- General Dmitry Lelyushenko. This task force included the 1st Guards Rifle Corps, elements of the 5th Airborne Corps, and the newly formed 4th Tank Brigade. Although these units were fresh from training, most were well equipped and led by competent officers. Of particular note was Colonel Mikhail Katukov, commander of the 4th Tank Brigade. He was one of the Red Army’s most experienced tankers, having served in merchanized units since 1932, and would go on to have an illustrious career as commander of the 1st Guards Tank Army. Major-General Lelyushenko decided to set up an ambush on the outskirts of the town, where the Orel-Tula highway passed through a shallow depression alongside a large patch of woodland. The infantry was ordered to dig in across the road, establishing a blocking position with machine guns and light anti-tank weapons, while the T-34s and KV-1s of the 4th Tank Brigade moved into concealed positions on the edge of the woods. On the afternoon of 6 October the lead companies of the 4th Panzer Division came up the road, hoping to sieze the bridges over the Zhusha before nightfall. Operating without a proper reconnaissance screen, they blundered straight into Lelyushenko’s ambush. At 17:30 hours, as the German tanks moved up to engage the dug-in infantry, a group of four T-34s

6 and three KV-1s under the command of Lieutenant Dmitry Lavrinienko (later to become a high scoring tank-ace) opened fire from the woods on their left flank. The Panzer IIIs and IVs returned fire, but were unable to make an impression on the heavier Soviet vehicles. Soon more T-34s were streaming out from the woods to join the fray and artillery was raining down on the German column. In the ensuing battle at least ten German tanks were knocked out (Soviet accounts put the number closer to 50) and their supporting infantry forced to retreat with heavy losses. News of this clash shocked Heinz Guderian, who later described it as “the first occasion on which the vast superiority of the Russian T-34 to our tanks became plainly apparent”. He was forced to halt his advance on Tula for several days while the battered and shaken men of the 4th Panzer Division were reorganized. Lelyushenko’s men held out in Mtsensk until 27 October, critically delaying the southern pincer of the German advance on Moscow. Guderian demanded that a special commission be set up to assess the threat posed by the T-34 and come up with a specification for a vehicle that could counter it. It was this specification that was to become the Panzerkampfwagen V “Panther”.

German Complacency Despite frequent assertions to the contrary, this was not the first encounter between T-34s and Panzers, nor was the T-34 a rare sight before this time (more than 1000 T-34s had been deployed to frontline units in the months before Barbarossa). The Germans had been aware of the new Soviet tank since the spring of 1941, and almost certainly had several working

7 examples in their inventory, captured during the mass encirclements of July and August. What they didn’t have was any apparent reason to worry about them. The early encounters with T-34s were stilted affairs where the Soviet tank crews were usually operating without effective command, infantry support, or proper training. These encounters gave the Germans a misleading impression of the tank’s capabilities and the complacency that the Wehrmacht developed in the aftermath of its initial victories meant there was no interest in examining the captured T-34s any more closely. Though the T-34 was undoubtedly superior to anything the Germans could deploy at the time, the position that the 4th Panzer Division had allowed itself to be lured into at Mtsensk would have been dangerous regardless of the Soviet tanks used. Guderian’s demand for new equipment was valid, but his vociferous tone was probably driven at least in part by a desire to play down his own mistakes. In his letters back to Germany Guderian perhaps overstated the shortfall between German and Soviet tanks, setting an ambitious set of minimum requirements that included “superior tactical mobility”, “improved armor protection”, and “heavier armament”. He also demanded – repeatedly – that this new tank be brought into action as soon as possible. Guderian’s unreasonable expectations for the tank that would become the Panther put the development process on a bad footing from the outset.

Specification VK 20 The German Armaments Ministry – known as the Heereswaffenamt or HWA – had been working on designs for a better since long before .

8 In 1938, while the Panzer IV was still only being produced in small experimental batches, the HWA published specification VK 20, which solicited designs for a new heavier medium tank to eventually replace the Panzer III and IV. The name of this specification was a reference to the intended weight of the vehicle – 20 tonnes compared to the 16 tonnes of the Panzer IV. Proposals were submitted by Krupp, Daimler-Benz, and MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg). VK 20 was seen as a long-term project and the three contractors involved were not expected to reach even the prototype stage for several more years. The overwhelming success of the German Blitzkrieg in Poland and France in 1939 and 1940, respectively, caused VK 20 to be sidelined even further. Neither Poland, France, nor Britain could field a medium tank that was as effective as the Panzer III or IV, causing many in the Wehrmacht high command to question whether or not the VK 20 program was really necessary. Instead, they pushed for a series of upgrades to be made to the III and IV in tandem with the development of a new that could counter slow-moving armored monsters like the British Matilda II. Many of the Daimler-Benz engineers working on the VK 20 project were shifted onto work revising and improving the Panzer III and IV, while most of the designers at Krupp were reallocated to the crash development of the new heavy tank – the vehicle that would later become the . Only the team at MAN remained at full strength to continue work on their design. During this period the specification for the VK 20 was amended to reflect the lessons learned in France and Poland. With the latest revision of the Panzer IV, the Ausf. F1, weighing

9 in at 22.3 tonnes, MAN’s VK 20.02 design was in danger of becoming obsolete before it even reached the prototype stage. The VK 20.02, therefore, became the VK 24.01 – a 24 tonne vehicle with thicker armor. Despite the extra time spent accounting for this revision, by the summer of 1941 the VK 24.01 was apparently almost finished. The design is thought to have allowed for 50mm of frontal armor (no better than the contemporary Panzer IV Ausf. F), and a 50mm L/60 main gun. Equipped with a 600hp Maybach HL210 engine, broad tracks, and , it would have had much better speed and cross- country performance than the Panzer IV. It did, however, have a number of highly questionable features. The drive wheels for the tracks were at the front, meaning that the drivetrain was mechanically complicated and ran the whole length of the tank; the broad tracks were supported by a set of interleaved wheels, which jammed easily; and the side armor was thin enough to be penetrated by Soviet anti-tank rifles.

Specification VK 30.02 This slow process of development was thrown into disarray by the events of the Battle of Mtsensk. In November 1941 a special investigative committee – known as the Panzerkommission – was flown out to Russia to speak with Guderian and examine some captured T-34s. They returned convinced that the vehicles designed according to the VK 24 requirements would not be heavy enough to withstand combat with T-34s. Despite strong objections from many senior figures in the HWA, who felt that MAN’s VK 24.01

10 had progressed too far to be scrapped, on 25 November a new specification – VK 30.02 – was sent out German manufacturers. The key requirements of VK 30.02 were that the new vehicle have a sloped plate (the tank’s frontal armor) at least 60mm thick and a turret capable of mounting the new Kwk 42 L/70 75mm gun. It also recommended that many features of the T-34 be incorporated into the design including wider tracks, better suspension, and a diesel powerplant. This last detail was important because diesel engines were more fuel efficient, coped better with flooding, and were much less likely to catch fire in the event of the tank being hit. The maximum weight for the VK 30.02 proposals was initially set at 32 tonnes, but this was later increased to 36 tonnes. To this already challenging set of requirements, Hitler added a deadline – at least 250 of these vehicles would have to be ready for frontline service by March 1943.

Delays and mismanagement Krupp, which was busy with the problematic development of the Tiger I, dropped out of the program early on, leaving just Daimler-Benz and MAN. Sticking to the spirit of the specification, Daimler-Benz submitted an all-new design that looked at first glance like an improved version of the T-34. It had sloped armor, a turret mounted near the front of the hull, a 650hp diesel engine, and a simple transmission linked to the drive wheels at the rear of the tank. MAN, unwilling to let three years’ work go to waste, submitted a design that was essentially a scaled-up version of the VK 24.01, which

11 was itself a scaled-up version of the VK 20.02. Aside from the sloped armor and the heavier armament, MAN ignored the Panzerkommission’s recommendations. The Daimler-Benz design was superior in almost every respect but it had a critical flaw: the 650hp diesel engine it required did not exist. The development of this new engine – though undoubtedly in the long-term interest of the German war effort – would delay the production of the vehicle by several months. By contrast, MAN not only planned to use a pre-existing engine, but also proposed making use of several other off-the-shelf components, including a turret developed by Henschel during trials of the Kwk 42. Hitler was greatly impressed by the Daimler-Benz proposal, but his subordinates were less enthusiastic. , the newly appointed Minister of Armaments, was afraid that the Daimler-Benz design would fall behind schedule and so preferred the seemingly more conservative MAN proposal. His view was shared by many others in the HWA, who also argued that the Daimler-Benz proposal ‘looked too Russian’ – something they saw as both an insult to the reputation of German engineering and a potential risk on the battlefield. With the full weight of the German wartime bureaucracy against him, Hitler – unusually – backed down. Daimler-Benz was ordered to cease work on the VK 30.02 in May and all resources were reallocated to MAN’s project. While all this was going on, the specification kept getting altered by Hitler and his subordinates. On 15 May Hitler announced that the VK 30.02 would have to have at least 80mm of frontal armor and as much as 100mm on the turret mantlet, increasing the weight of what was in theory still a

12 medium tank to 45 tonnes. As this increased weight risked collapsing bridges, the specification was again amended to include a fully waterproofed engine compartment that would allow for the fording of deep rivers.

Production Problems The progress of the VK 30.02 from drawing board to prototype was similarly troubled. MAN had very little experience designing and building tanks, having not won a government contract since the Panzer II in 1934, and struggled with the technical complexities of their own proposal. Engineers from Henschel were brought in to iron out the worst of the problems, but schedules slipped anyway. The first prototype was demonstrated to Hitler in September 1942. Many more vehicles were immobilized by mines. He officially named it the “Panther” and enthusiastically approved it for full production. The first batch of production Panthers (known as Model V2) were shown off to Speer and several senior Wehrmacht officers during a live fire exercise in January 1943. Around half the vehicles broke down during the demonstration, and at least one spontaneously caught fire. The officers were impressed by the accuracy of the Panther’s gun and by its cross-country mobility, but concluded that the whole first batch needed to be returned to the factory. The Panther’s mechanical unreliability, which was made clearly apparent at the January trials, had several causes. The first was the inherent complexity of the MAN design. In a 20 tonne tank, the front-wheel drive system would not have been a problem, but as specification increased from 20 tonnes to 24 tonnes to 36 tonnes it became less and less appropriate.

13 Further problems came from the fact that the designs for the transmission and drivetrain were already finalized before Hitler’s decision to increase the tank’s weight to 45 tonnes. It was too late to revise the design again because the tooling needed to make these components was already in production. As a consequence the Panther’s drivetrain was handling 9 tonnes more weight than it was ever designed to bear. This caused frequent catastrophic failures of the weak components in the system, most notably the final drive (the gears that transfer torque from the driveshaft to the front axles). Finally, the attempts to waterproof the engine compartment caused major problems with ventilation, allowing the engine to overheat and even catch fire. To add to the design problems, there were also major quality control issues. MAN lacked the resources to produce the Panther in the numbers requested and so had to sub- contract much of the work to smaller companies. Attempts to get German companies to handle the work were shot down by Speer, who insisted that they were already at full capacity working on other vehicles. As a result MAN were forced to sub-contract the manufacture of many components to French companies, where the workers delighted in doing as slapdash and incompetent a job as they could get away with. The worst problems with the V2 models were soon seemingly fixed, however, and the revised design, known as the Panzerkampfwagen V “Panther” Ausf. D, began production in February. In June 1943, as preparations for Operation Citadel were reaching their peak, the first 250 production Panthers were handed over to frontline units in the east. Dismayed by the tanks’ continuing reliability problems – two of them caught

14 fire and were destroyed driving off the trains they arrived on – Heinz Guderian refused to approve them for combat use. He was overruled by Speer, however, and within a month the Panthers began their baptism of fire at Kursk.

The Panther at Kursk On the morning of 5 July 1943 the Panther tank was sent into battle for the first time as part of Operation Citadel. Around 200 vehicles had been assigned to the 51st and 52nd Panzer Battalions – part of the Grossdeutschland Division – under the command of Major Meinrad von Lauchert. They were to form part of the southern pincer of the German offensive, pushing north from Belgorod to Kursk. The day did not begin well: the Panthers were unable to reach the start line on time because of mechanical breakdowns, including several engine fires. For the first day of the battle they were not involved in any significant combat because they were struggling to catch up with the main force. The drivers, who had not yet learned how gentle they needed to be with the Panther’s fragile drivetrain, wrecked dozens of vehicles trying to power through mud or up steep slopes. By the morning of 6 July the Panther formation was down to only 80 operational tanks. The first combat between Panthers and T-34s, which took place near the village of Dubrova on the 6th, was a disaster for the Germans. Caught by a flanking attack in open ground, 19 Panthers were knocked out by shots to their thin side armor. Only 12 T-34s were lost in the engagement, and it is not clear how many of these losses were the work of the Panthers. The following day’s action was no better: the Panther force, by now down to just 50 vehicles, strayed into the kill zone of a battery

15 “Panther” Ausf. A Panzerkampfwagen V Muzzle brakeMuzzle Final drive gears radio operator’s Ball-mount for MG34 Driver’s pedals Driver’s periscope Drive sprocket periscope operator’sRadio storage bins ammunition Primary MG34 Coaxial Steering levers extractor fan extractor fume Cartridge periscope Loader’s Traverse motor controls telescopic sight Gunner’s Gunner’s traverse wheel Gunner’s seat cupola and hatch Commander’s Engine access hatch Commander’s seat storage bins ammunition Secondary fans Engine ventilation aerial Radio road wheels Rubber-edged Spare track links armored skirts Schürzen intake vent Engine air

16 of 76mm and 85mm anti-tank guns. At least ten more Panthers were destroyed before they could retreat. Although the Panther did perform well in later engagements – knocking out 28 T-34s for the loss of only six Panthers on 12 July, for example – there were too few operational vehicles to have any significant impact on the course of the battle. When it was all over, Major von Lauchert attempted to save face by claiming an implausibly high number of tank kills for his unit, some 260 vehicles. More recent estimates put the figure at less than 100. This is impressive when it is considered that only around 30 Panthers were in operation for most of battle, but it is nonetheless a tiny fraction of the 2400 Soviet tanks destroyed at Kursk. Given the high expectations that Hitler had for the Panther – the entire Kursk offensive was repeatedly delayed just so the vehicle could take part – even Von Lauchert’s claim was something of a disappointment. His fabrication was widely accepted, however, as no-one wanted to admit that Guderian was right – the Panther was not ready for combat.

Further development Of the initial batch of 200 Panthers deployed at Kursk, only around 35 were destroyed by enemy action, the rest were damaged but repairable. Two weeks later, however, another 70 had to be blown up by German engineers when Army Group South’s maintenance depot was overrun. The remaining vehicles were sent back to MAN for extensive refurbishment, which included stronger final drives and better engine cooling systems. These revisions to the design were incorporated into the later versions of the Ausf D.

17 Having read the combat reports from Kursk, Hitler demanded that the design of the Panther be completely overhauled. He wanted the front armor increased to around 100mm and the side armor increased to at least 60mm. Work on this design, called the Panther II, was repeatedly delayed by the urgent need to bring the existing Panther up to a reasonable standard. It progressed no further than the prototype stage before the end of the war. A more pragmatic approach was taken by the HWA, who initiated the development of a revised version of the existing design. This vehicle, confusingly known as the Ausf. A, began production in September 1943, after only 840 Ausf. D’s had been built. This vehicle is most easily distinguished from its predecessor by the bell-shaped commander’s cupola and the ball-mounted MG34 in the front of the hull, which replaced the tiny gunport fitted to the Ausf. D. More important though were the modifications to its engine cooling systems, drivetrain and suspension, which alleviated – though by no means fixed – the problems with the mechanical reliability of the tank. During this period the engine was also upgraded from a 600hp Maybach HL210 to the 700hp HL230 (the same engine that powered the Tiger II). The increase in power provided by this engine allowed for the addition of slightly thickened armor on the turret and the attachment of Schürzen side-skirts without a significant drop in speed. This engine did nothing to improve the tank’s already dismal fuel efficiency, however. The MAN factory specifications claimed that a full 720 liter (190 gallon) tank of gasoline would allow a Panther to travel 250km (160 miles) on road and 100km (60 miles) cross-country. In practice

18 the figures were often closer to 130km (80 miles) on road and 60–80km (40–50 miles) cross country due to the poor quality of German fuel. By comparison, the 1943 model T-34 could travel 400km (250 miles) on a full tank of low-quality diesel. The final revision of the Panther to reach operational status, the Ausf. G, was a great improvement on the earlier models. The only significant visible difference between the G and A was the flat ‘chin’ on the lower part of the – introduced because the curved lower section was found to be deflecting AP shells through the thin roof of the crew compartment – but it had many unseen mechanical improvements and armor upgrades. Most importantly the side armor was increased to 50mm, which significantly improved the vehicle’s survivability on the battlefield. This model continued to be produced and modified until the end of the war. Even with all these revisions, however, MAN’s engineers were never able to bring the reliability up to a level comparable with the Panzer IV or even with the notoriously high-maintenance Tiger I. The Germans preferred to load the Panther onto trains for any journey of more than about 25km (16 miles), due to the high rate of mechanical failures experienced on long journeys by road. The final drives of even the improved Panther Ausf. G typically wore out and failed after 150km (93 miles) of travel.

Battlefield Performance The shortcomings of the Panther on the strategic level were of little comfort to those Allied tank crews unlucky enough to find themselves facing one in battle, however. For all its faults, the Panther was undoubtedly an awesome fighting machine, capable of inspiring panic even when massively outnumbered.

19 Its reputation among Sherman and T-34 crews was comparable to that of the massive Tiger and Tiger II tanks. The reason for this was that the Panther was effectively invincible when fighting on its own terms. As long as it kept its flanks guarded there was almost nothing that Allied medium tanks could do to harm it. If an Allied armored column came under fire from Panzer IVs, they could knock them out simply by returning fire. Having been taken by surprise, the Allies would likely suffer heavier losses than their attackers, but these would not be disastrous. If the same engagement took place with a group of Panthers, however, the result was usually carnage. There was almost nothing that an Allied commander could do to regain the initiative. Returning fire was futile as the Panther’s frontal armor was immune to most Allied tank guns. Attempting a flanking maneuver also stood little chance of success as the Panther company commander would have reconnoitred the area and set up secondary ambushes on flanking routes. More often than not, the only thing that Allied commanders could do was to retreat as fast as possible and try a different route. Describing a counterattack near the town of Fastov in the autumn of 1943, a Red Army intelligence officer remarked, “It was useless to resist those heavy ‘Panther’ tanks. The order was just to mount our tanks and get away.” Even in open battle, the Panther was terrifying. It dwarfed the T-34 and Sherman, yet could move as fast as either of them. Allied tank commanders were instructed to fire only on the sides and rear of the tank, but in the shocked moments after a Panther erupted from a hedgerow or out from behind a building, it was not uncommon for the inexperienced crews

20 of T-34s and Shermans to forget this advice. They were then forced to watch as their AP rounds shattered or ricocheted off the Panther’s glacis plate. This was often the last thing they ever saw.

Countering the Panther As the Panther’s frontal armor was impervious to fire from any contemporary medium tank, both the Western Allies and the Soviet Union were forced to begin emergency programs to create effective countermeasures. The Red Army, which had to face the vast majority of all the Panthers built, created several specialized weapons to defeat it including the SU-85 and SU-100 tank destroyers; the IS-2 heavy tank; and the BS-3 100mm towed anti-tank gun. The Western Allies also designed several heavy tanks to counter the Panther, but few of them reached frontline service in time to see any significant combat. The only countermeasure that was used in large numbers on the Western front was the British QF 17-pounder anti-tank gun. This 76mm weapon fired a high- velocity round capable of penetrating the Panther’s glacis plate and turret armor. It was used in the Firefly tank (a modified Sherman) and the Achilles (a modified M-10 ) as well as being deployed as a towed anti-tank weapon. Countermeasures against the Panther were more often tactical than technical, however. On both the western and eastern front, Panther crews faced an increasingly experienced and disciplined enemy as the war progressed. Tactics that enabled Shermans or T-34s to prevail against the Panther were spread by word of mouth amongst tank crews, with veteran commanders teaching them to each new group of replacements.

21 One particularly effective tactic, used frequently on the Eastern Front, used two teams of T-34s working together to halt Panther-led counterattacks. When Panthers were sighted, the two teams would maneuver onto opposite sides of the German advance. It wasn’t usually possible to get far enough around the flanks of the attackers to get a good shot on their side armor, but Red Army tank crews had learned that even at shallow angles, shots to a Panther’s interleaved road wheels would cause the tracks to seize up. Even if this jam only lasted for a few moments, the imbalance between the still-moving track and the immobilized track would cause the Panther to lurch violently to one side. This movement would then present the other group of T-34s with a clear shot on the Panther’s side armor. The role that each group would play was often pre- arranged by platoon commanders, and the two teams would receive equal credit for each kill.

The Panther in the East The later career of the Panther on the Eastern Front was much more distinguished than its initial outing at Kursk. Although its mechanical problems never really went away, the Germans learned to work around them. More importantly, the Germans were now in retreat, and thus usually able to fight on ground of their choosing. In a defensive role the Panther’s thin side armor was less of an issue, and its long-range gun came into its own. A good example of the kind of actions that were fought by the Panthers later in the war is the clash that took place around the Ukrainian village of Kolomak (around 80km west of Kharkov) on 12 September 1943. Here a group of Panthers from the

22 2nd SS Panzer Division ‘Das Reich’, backed by two or three StuG III assault guns and a company of infantry, established a fortified position to hold back the Soviet advance. The village stood on a slight rise overlooking a broad plain of open fields to the west, making it an ideal spot for a holding action. On the afternoon of the 12th, the position was attacked by a division-sized force of T-34s and accompanying infantry from the 5th Guards Tank Army. The Panthers engaged the enemy tanks from a range of around 2000m knocking out wave after wave of T-34s before they could get close enough to return fire. By nightfall the fields around the village were littered with burning T-34s. The German defenders claimed to have knocked out 78 T-34s for the loss of just one of their own vehicles, forcing the Red Army advance in this sector to be called off. They then fell back in good order before artillery and air units could be brought to bear against them. The commander of the Panther group, SS-Hauptsturmführer Friedrich Holzer, was awarded the Knight’s Cross for his part in this action.

The Panther in the West At the time of the D-Day landings, there were only 156 Panthers available on the Western Front. This figure was quickly increased as reinforcements were sent to Normandy, reaching a peak of around 430 in late July 1944. The combat experience of the Panthers in France varied considerably depending on which sector of the line they were deployed to. In the area around Caen, where most of the Panzer divisions were sent, the open fields and rolling terrain favoured the Panther’s long range gun. However, in the western sector around St Lo, where the was deployed, the high hedges

23 of the Bocage country made it impossible to use the gun to its best effect. The experiences of SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, fighting around Caen during the first two weeks of June 1944, are typical of German armored units in this theater. The first action in which the Hitlerjugend’s Panthers were used took place on 8 June, when SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer led the 25th Regiment’s Panther battalion in an attack on the headquarters of the Canadian Regina Rifle Regiment in the village of Bretteville l’Orgueilleuse. As the Panthers approached the village from the east, they came under fire from a QF 17-pounder anti-tank gun, which knocked out the leading three tanks and forced the rest to withdraw. Meyer regrouped his forces and launched another attack, this time from the south and north. The Panthers smashed through the outer defenses and moved into the village but the Canadians held their ground. In several hours of hard fighting, six Panthers were knocked out, mostly by infantry firing PIAT anti-tank launchers from the upper floors of houses. After a few more abortive counterattacks like that one, which resulted in the loss of another 12 Panthers to anti-tank guns and QF 17-pounder-equipped tanks, the Germans shifted their tactics to the purely defensive. A good example of one of these later clashes took place on 11 June near the village of Rots. The Shermans of the 40th Canadian Armoured Regiment tried to break through the German lines around the village, which was defended by a company of Panthers. In the ensuing battle the Canadians lost 15 tanks and suffered more than 100 casualties. The Panthers were able to withdraw in good order across the Muc River.

24 Fighting in the Panther For German tank crews, the interior of the Panther was a significant improvement on the Panzer IV, which had become more and more cramped as larger guns were shoehorned into the small turret. A Panther’s crew consisted of a commander, gunner, loader, radio operator, and driver. They were all hooked up to an internal intercom system, allowing communication over the roar of the engine and the sounds of battle. The driver had arguably the hardest job of anyone in the crew. Being able to maneuver around the battlefield effectively without damaging the vehicle’s fragile drivetrain required a deft touch and skilled judgement. He sat on a low padded seat down in the front left compartment of the tank, separated from the radio operator by the tank’s enormous gearbox. Directly in front of him, only a few inches from his face, was the thick bulletproof glass of the viewport, and above that the eyepieces for the two periscopes. The seat was positioned close to the side of the hull, just above the hull floor. To the right of the driver was a control panel with the speedometer, fuel gauge, and other important instruments. The large rubber-tipped gear lever stuck out from the side of the gearbox roughly level with the driver’s hip while the steering levers (one for each track) hung down from mountings on either side of the viewport. The driver’s position was an awkward one, especially for taller men who had to uncomfortably squeeze their legs under the axle for the drive wheels in order to reach the pedals. It did, however, have the advantage of a large escape hatch positioned directly above the seat. On the opposite side of the gearbox sat the radio operator. His position was the mirror image of the driver’s position,

25 except he had a ball-mounted MG34 in front of him where the driver had a vision port. His only view outside the tank was through the twin periscopes mounted into the roof just above the top of the glacis plate. His bulky radio was mounted over the gearbox to his left. In battle he was supposed to operate the hull , but his most important role was usually to keep the tank commander updated on orders from the platoon leader. Although it wasn’t officially part of the role, most radio operators also acted as spotters for the gunner, reporting on where shots fell and relaying corrections. The floor of the turret was about 30cm higher than the floor in the front compartment, meaning that there was only a small opening between the two sections of the interior. The turret crewmembers – gunner, loader, and commander – could only really communicate with the other two using the intercom. The gunner sat on a low seat mounted to the turret floor behind the driver. He had an extremely uncomfortable and cramped position, with the breech of the main gun almost pressing against his right shoulder. The gunner controlled the turret’s hydraulic traverse mechanism using a pair of foot pedals, but usually had to fine-tune any powered movement with manual adjustments using a wheel on the left of his seat. The ergonomics of his controls were poorly thought through – the turret traverse pedals were at an awkward angle to the seat and the optical sight for the gun was placed so close to the breech that the gunner usually had to remove, or partially remove, his headphones to get his eye up to the eyepiece. One major disadvantage of the Panther’s design was that the gunner had no periscope, limiting his vision to just what he could see through the narrow field of view provided by the optical

26 sights. This often slowed down the process of target acquisition as he had to scan around to find a target. In experienced crews the commander learned to give very specific references for the location of his intended target, though even then target acquisition was much slower than in a Sherman or T-34. This delay was more than made up for by the astonishing accuracy made possible by the high-quality Leitz TZF 12a gunsight. This design had a 5x magnification and well-designed crosshairs that made it possible to quickly gauge the range and speed of a target. Its only flaw was that it had no forehead guard on the eyepiece, meaning that any gunner to tried to line up a target while the tank was in motion risked jabbing himself in the eye. In the event that the tank was hit, the gunner typically had the lowest chance of survival. To get out he had to either scramble under the gun and squeeze out of the rear escape hatch or climb up onto the commander’s seat and out through the cupola. If either man had been killed or injured in the attack there was often not enough room for him to get past. The loader had the simplest job of anyone in the crew, though also the most physically demanding. He had to load the gun with the ammunition specified by the commander quickly and efficiently. In lengthy engagements, this often meant scrambling around pulling heavy shells out of the various secondary storage bins around the interior of the tank. He had a fold-down seat, but in combat had to stand up – an awkward and uncomfortable position for most men as the roof of the turret was only 1.6m high (5ft 3in). His position was relatively open, however, compared to that of the rest of the crewmen, meaning that he was usually the most likely to escape (through the rear hatch behind his position) if the tank was hit.

27 The most important member of the tank’s crew was the commander. He sat on an elevated seat that was mounted to the interior of the turret just behind the gun. If he wanted to put his head out of the open cupola for a better view of the battlefield, he had to stand up on a metal footrest just under his seat. With his head in the cupola, he had a 360-degree view that enabled him to make tactical decisions about the placement of the tank and decide which targets the gunner should engage. The skill of the commander was often what decided if a Panther crew lived or died. Poorly trained commanders often lost their tanks (and frequently their lives) in their first battles, while others, like Panther ace Ernst Barkmann (82 kills) of the 2nd SS Panzer Division “Das Reich”, survived the whole war.

Overall Assessment The Panther is often hailed as the finest tank of World War II. On paper, this is undoubtedly true. It had a higher top speed, more powerful gun, and thicker armor than any commonly- fielded Allied tank. Moreover it cost only slightly more than the Panzer IV and was simple enough to be constructed in large numbers unlike the heavy Tiger I and Tiger II. Look a little more closely at the Panther’s specifications, however, and serious flaws can be seen. The armor, though impressive, was not well distributed. The massive glacis plate was offset by dangerously thin side armor which could be penetrated by almost any Allied tank or anti-tank weapon. Similarly, the high top speed and good cross country performance came at the cost of fuel efficiency, making the vehicle prohibitively expensive to operate.

28 This is before one even begins to consider the appalling mechanical reliability problems that plagued the Panther throughout its operational life. Panther units were rarely able to keep more than 35 percent of their nominal tank strength operational for prolonged periods (compared with close to 90 percent readiness in T-34 units). This negated, to a significant degree, the advantage of numbers that its relatively cheap construction was supposed to enable. Although the Panther was a more common sight on the battlefield than the Tiger I or II, it was never as common as it needed to be to turn the tide. The Panther was ultimately a success on the tactical level, but a failure on the strategic level. In a straight gunnery duel, the Panther almost always prevailed over its enemies. In war, however, there is no requirement to fight on even terms. The Panther’s lack of strategic mobility meant that it was far easier for Allied units to simply bypass areas where Panthers were active. As the Panther was only able to operate for a very short time without the support of its extensive logistics organization, encirclement meant defeat. When forced to take to the roads and retreat, the Panther sustained heavier losses to its own mechanical flaws than it ever did to enemy action. Although exact figures are hard to come by, it is thought that around half of all Panther losses during World War II were the result of immobilized vehicles being blown up by German forces as they retreated.

The Influence of the Panther The two main factories involved in the production of Panthers – MAN’s facility near Nurenberg and Maschinenfabrik Niedersachsen in Hannover – were overrun by Allied forces

29 in April 1945. The Hannover facility, which fell under British occupation shortly after the cessation of hostilities, was captured largely intact, with several half-completed Panther Ausf. Gs still on the factory floor. At some point during the summer of 1945, specialists from the British Corps of Royal Engineers oversaw the production of one final batch of Panthers, which were shipped back to Britain for testing. Although it is often seen as the forerunner of the modern – thanks to its combination of heavy armor and impressive speed – the Panther had little direct influence on the design of post-war tanks. The British tests of the Panther concluded that it was an impressive gunnery platform, but that it was greatly inferior in every respect to the tanks that were already rolling off British production lines. A similar conclusion was reached by the US Army Corps of Engineers with respect to their new M46 Patton tanks. The only post war tank that borrowed from the Panther’s design to any significant degree was the French AMX-50 heavy tank. This vehicle used the same torsion bar suspension and interleaved road wheels as the Panther, as well as an upgraded version of the Panther’s Maybach powerplant. The AMX-50 never entered full production, however, and bore no resemblance to later French designs, so its importance is minimal.

30 Imprint

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