What if, due to some POD, the Tiger tank was cancelled in favor of more Panther tanks? How can this affect the German war strategy?
More Panthers instead of Tigers?
- Thread starter Sextus Munatius Piso
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Was the Panther actually easier to keep running than the Tiger? Either in terms of ease of maintenance or fuel and spares consumption? Dramatically more reliable? Was it a much more effective fighting vehicle? If not why make the production change you are suggesting?
A temporary drop in production as they production shift occurs is inevitable. If they were willing to tolerate that loss, why not shut down production of the Panzer IV instead?
As I understand it that was actually advice Hitler got, which shows how desperate things were, since it would have meant most tank production stopped during the changeover.
The logic apparently was that Germany's critical shortage was not tanks. The potential war losing shortages were in fuel to run them and crews to man them. A much larger Panzer Corps could not have been crewed or fueled. A slightly smaller one with better tanks would keep the crewmen alive longer with about the same total fuel consumption.
Does that help?
DOe sthat mean that between mid 42 and mid 43, the German stay with Pz IV and don't introduce any new model?
Also a good question. Were the Tiger, King Tiger and Panther worth the trouble? The cost, reduced total production - one King Tiger was worth how many Panzer IV's - and the added logistics burden of running the extra supply lines for parts, training etc.
I assumed the original question was: - Kill Tiger production and shift the resources to Panthers. Given that none of the Panthers that started the first day of the Battle of Kursk was available for the second day - not the most reliable vehicle in the world - it is a valid question.
A platoon of Panzer IV's that are actually present could reasonably be considered worth more than a King Tiger that broke down irrepairably on the way to the battlefield and is now blocking the Main Supply Route. Which is supposed to be why the MBT-70 German/American joint tank design project failed. The Germans were old Panzertruppen with bitter memories of things like that and the Americans were old Sherman Tank crewmen who had a rather different view of the Tiger.
West Germany ended up making the Leopard II and the US the M-1 Abrams.
Ok, that is my trivia lesson for today.
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How many more long barrel Panzer IV's could they have had for that?
If it was enough more to keep unit close to full strength, does that make a real difference in the end?
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That's a most peculiar way of determining differances between production, one I've never seen before in regards to tanks.
Usually one compares man hours, labour was always the most important factor.
Tiger I: 300,000
Panther A: 55,000
T-34: 3,000
M4 Sherman: 2,000
I always find that 'man hours' is a subjective thing
For example canon tells us that a ME109 took X hours to build and a Spitfire 3X but nobody has ever satisfied me as to how these man hours were arrived at.
Did the man hours for the Spit include things that the ME109 man hours did not for example?
The same with tank construction
The German engineers @ DB and MAN were asked to produce a copy of the T34 but were incapable of such a simple task and instead had to over complicate everything (MAN more so than DB)
Obviously the More complicated design was chosen.
A T34 'Copy' built to German standards with a long 75mm, German Radio and Optics (and crew) would have been far more useful to the Heer than both the Tiger and Panther were.
I imagine that the only limitation to the numbers able to be built would be the ability of the German industry to produce sufficient Guns, Transmissions and optics.
Its usually the case the the enemy to perfection is the good enough - in Nazi Germany they seemed to take great efforts to reverse this trend.
Thankfully.
Deleted member 1487
No, the Tiger was more complex than the Panther by a wide margin. Take the cost for example, the Panther was barely more than the Pz IV (around 150k RM), while the Tiger cost multiples more at 850k RM. The Panther was designed for mass production, while the Tiger was a highly intricate design meant for batch production; nothing any Allied power produced was as complicated as the Tiger, something that is talked about in this lecture on Kursk toward the middle (though there are some serious flaws in his analysis of tank production):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6xLMUifbxQ
Deleted member 1487
The best thing the Germans could have done would have been to cancel the Tiger and produce more Panthers, but the original VK3002 MAN design, rather than the upweighted Panther that actually was produced. This would have a negative effect in early 1943 though, as the Tigers, though few in number, were very helpful at the 3rd Kharkov. Of course the hope would be that the lighter Panther would be in service sooner, not soon enough for Kharkov, but soon enough for Kursk. The problem at that time though was that the war was lost. Anything at that point is delaying the inevitable, as USAAF bombing of Panther production in 1943 demonstrated. By 1944 it had wrecked StuG III production and seriously hampered Panther production.
In terms of Panzer policy with hindsight the lighter Panther was the way to go, but by the time it was ready the Pz IV was the best option for mass production, supplemented by Panthers and TDs with 88mm L70s (Nashorns on the Panther chassis) to support them against the heavier Soviet tanks coming online. Of course there are plenty of other issues with the general organization of the German armored forces and wider military that need to be addressed beyond just tank production, including the stupid decision to form Panzerlehr division, taking all the best instructors out of schools and getting them slaughtered at Normandy. Also wasting a lot of useful, highly technically skilled manpower in the Luftwaffe Field Divisions was a massive waste of men that would have been highly useful for the Panzerwaffe and other technical army fields.
In terms of Panzer policy with hindsight the lighter Panther was the way to go, but by the time it was ready the Pz IV was the best option for mass production, supplemented by Panthers and TDs with 88mm L70s (Nashorns on the Panther chassis) to support them against the heavier Soviet tanks coming online. Of course there are plenty of other issues with the general organization of the German armored forces and wider military that need to be addressed beyond just tank production, including the stupid decision to form Panzerlehr division, taking all the best instructors out of schools and getting them slaughtered at Normandy. Also wasting a lot of useful, highly technically skilled manpower in the Luftwaffe Field Divisions was a massive waste of men that would have been highly useful for the Panzerwaffe and other technical army fields.
Deleted member 1487
Also a minor point: of the Tiger I's about 50% were lost to mechanical issues and had to be abandoned/blown in place. Not sure about the Tiger IIs. That's a pretty heavy wastage rate for mechanical problems. Not sure about the Panther design abandonment rate, but probably not that great either. The Vk3002 MAN is probably going to be marginally better than the Panther (and the Panther better than the Tiger), but not wonderful either, however I doubt its anywhere near that high. So just in terms of getting a functional AFV to the front lines and being able to handle road marches better then VK3002 MAN is the best option of the historical design choices given the historical Panther and Tiger. Tigers had a fearsome kill ratio even with the losses to mechanical issues, but having more functional Panthers is the better choice given the lower breakdown rate (especially if the lighter VK3002 is opted for), better armor piercing of the 75mm L70 over the Tiger's 88mm L56, better mobility/reliability, and better armor layout. The VK3002 still has its own design issues in terms of maintenance, but is easier to build and less valuable if lost in combat/due to mechanical issues. Plus there are economies of scale issues and training/logistic savings by focusing on one type.
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That's because you're comparing apples and oranges. You often can't compare between countries as they usually have different standards (my mistake for including the T-34 and Sherman above, I shouldn't have) sometimes the sub-components (such as radios and arnament) are included and sometimes they aren't. But you can compare between models from the same country with a greater degree of accuracy.
So you can say with some authority that Germany could instead of those 1.800 Tiger I and II have built roughly 6-7.000 Panther tanks (in adddition to the 5.500 they built OTL). But you can't say Germany could have built 200.000 T-34 (or whatever much).
Hope that made some sense.
If the Tiger I's were cancelled but Der Fuhrer had still wanted a tank-type that can carry the 88mm cannon ...
Would the engineers be able to come up with a version of the JagdPanther earlier on with the Panther ....?
Or would they have gone for a Stug V carrying a 88mm on a Mark IV chassis ?? Or even make it on a Panther Chassis instead of a Jadgpanther ?
Would the engineers be able to come up with a version of the JagdPanther earlier on with the Panther ....?
Or would they have gone for a Stug V carrying a 88mm on a Mark IV chassis ?? Or even make it on a Panther Chassis instead of a Jadgpanther ?
Deleted member 1487
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashorn
The Nashorn was around before the Panther even showed up and around the time the Tiger made its appearance. If the Tiger is cancelled they could still have the left over Porsche versions that historically were turned into the Ferdinand TD; just have it not add on all that extra armor and it wouldn't be half bad.
I think Tiger II was closer to 90% None battle losses IIRC
Certainly the 90 or so that 'took part' in "Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein" where all abandoned without firing a shot in anger
I agree that the DB version of the Panther would have been better but I still believe that a very close copy of the T34 would have served them better
Deleted member 1487
The DB version was a straight German copy of the T-34, but the problem was that Hitler demanded the L70 gun for the tank, which would require an extra year to design and the MAN design could take a pre-designed VK3601 turret, so won on that account. Of course that turret was terrible and something better was required, but the Panther F version never got a chance to appear, despite fixing a lot of the flaws of the Panther (though not the final drive AFAIK or layout issues in terms of getting at them easily).
Here is the VK3002DB with T-34s for comparison. It had the interweaved wheel issue and IIRC cramped crew space, while the MAN design was more spacious. Not only that, but the DB had the issue of looking too much like the T-34, which creates a lot of friendly fire issues in the heat of combat that the Germans did not want to deal with.
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It made perfect sense as that was my whole point
I did think though that you were trying to say that 1 panther took 27.5 x the man hours a Sherman took to build - but I understadn now you were just showing how much more effort it took to build a Tiger over a Panther!
I'm not suggesting that they could build many 10s of thousands of "Pz34s" but they would very likely have been able to make more of them than they did the combined run of Panthers and Tigers.
A "Pz34" armed with a 75mm / 40 or better would make it deadly vs any allied tank up to the end of the war at battle field ranges.