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 Wehrmacht. 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: Maybach 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 gasoline 1500m (1600yd) Fuel consumption (Road): 2.8 liters per Secondary weapons: Two 7.62mm kilometer (1.2 gallons per mile) MG34 Panzerlauf (‘tank 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 tanks. 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 Panther tank 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 Heinz Guderian’s Second Panzer Army closing on the town from the southwest, Mtsensk was occupied by a Red Army 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 medium tank since long before Operation Barbarossa. 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 heavy tank that could counter slow-moving armored monsters like the British Matilda II.