Deleted member 1487
The Germans should have just focused on production of the secret weapon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kugelpanzer
That is freakin' weird and somehow fitting that it was shipped to Japan.
That is freakin' weird and somehow fitting that it was shipped to Japan.
Looks more like a remote controlled demolition vehicle than anything else. Probably a one off proof of concept experiment.
This photo makes it look a bit more impressive, you guys agree?
http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/entry/angriff_der_kreiselpanzer/13961/kugelpanzer.html
http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/entry/angriff_der_kreiselpanzer/13961/kugelpanzer.html
Deleted member 1487
Interesting perspective from the Soviets about the OTL overweight Panther:
http://alejandro-8.blogspot.com/2011/12/opinion-sovietica-sobre-el-panther.html
http://alejandro-8.blogspot.com/2011/12/opinion-sovietica-sobre-el-panther.html
The engine was rubbish,
.I often hear about Shermans destroying Panthers farly easily from the side. Whats the point of making a great tank, if its side armour is inadequate and can be destroyed by a simple Sherman?
I watched this as well, what do you think.
http://www.ww2f.com/topic/40733-military-cable-channel-fact-or-fiction-famous-tank-battles-of-wwii/
Deleted member 1487
The engine was rubbish,
I often hear about Shermans destroying Panthers farly easily from the side. Whats the point of making a great tank, if its side armour is inadequate and can be destroyed by a simple Sherman?
I watched this as well, what do you think.
http://www.ww2f.com/topic/40733-military-cable-channel-fact-or-fiction-famous-tank-battles-of-wwii/
Which gets me back to the point that its better to have a mobile tank that can avoid flank shots by repositioning. BTW hate to break it to you, but all tanks had weaker side armor. It was not just the Panther.
Also the Sherman gets a bad rap, but it was actually a decent tank, especially in the Firefly variant. It was designed to fight the Pz IV, which it was as good as if not better than IMHO, but against the German heavies it was not expected to fight them head on.
Finally the engine wasn't bad, it was the same as the Tiger, but the issue was the transmission and final drive, which were not designed to work on such a heavy vehicle with unbalanced weight (too heavy upfront).
Having more Panthers with less mechanical issues and more of them would only help. Especially if they can replace the less effective Pz IV. If you think the Panther was weakly protected on the sides, what about the Pz IV's frontal armor???
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Is the Panzer IV expected to last long in a fire fight? I thought it was just supposed to be just an average tank. The Panther I think of, maybe wrongly, as something more special, that deserves better protection. Why not just make more IV's if the Panther can be destroyed as easily, from the side.
Thanks for the info, I'm learning, if slowly
Deleted member 1487
Is the Panzer IV expected to last long in a fire fight? I thought it was just supposed to be just an average tank. The Panther I think of, maybe wrongly, as something more special, that deserves better protection. Why not just make more IV's if the Panther can be destroyed as easily, from the side.
Thanks for the info, I'm learning, if slowly
The side armor of the Panther was better than the Pz IV. The Panther was supposed to replace the Pz IV. As it was the frontal armor being sloped gave it better protection than the uparmored Pz IV, which by the late war had 80mm of frontal armor, though in a poor layout.
The Panther had a better armor layout, which resulted in all around better protection and it had a more powerful engine and a much more powerful gun. It was designed to be a T-34 killer and would have been excellent in that role in its original form; in the compromised form it was still pretty good, but had a lot of issues that needed working out. Keeping it to 36 tons would have been ideal due to being able to move around and avoid the side shot, while being able to engage and kill targets at 2km, which the Panther was able to due, which was far outside the effective range of the T-34 or M4 Sherman, reduced the possibility of the side shot.
With more light Panthers they would have been able to also avoid the 6 on 1 problem by having extra vehicles around to cover their flanks, more than IOTL; they could all engage the M4 or T-34 from outside their range and even the score before the enemy got in side shot position or even effective frontal position. The Pz IV was the mainstay of the Panzer arm even late war due to just being all that was available, so was pretty vulnerable; its better to have a technically superior tank if you're going to be outnumbered, so the Pz IV was not worth it beyond 1943, especially if the Panther could take over and have the Pz IV support it and guard the flanks.
Deleted member 1487
The Soviets had the T-34/85, so that gets the nod; they basically would probably counter with their own sniper, the SU/IS series.
The US would just use aircraft, artillery, and Sherman maneuvering to take them on. The Firefly was a British model, not a US one. I think the Pershing would be the counter eventually, but in the mean time they just do what worked IOTL.
Rather than arguing which strategy is better, I'm very curious to see where you think would be a good place to launch limited attacks in 1943 by Summer. Maybe some May attacks near Kirov?
There were plans for less ambitious operations such as Operation Habicht aimed at pinching out smaller Soviet salients on the Donets. I think Habicht was the one intended to destroy that salient at Izyum
I see, thanks. Was just thinking that there were perhaps some projects in work that didn't get anywhere OTL but might have profited from this POD.
Hm, a quick look at the Pershing Wiki article seems to suggest that it could have been on the battle field (much) earlier, if there would've been more support or need for it. At least it's mentioned that they thought the Panther and Tiger were only some few units and that those wouldn't cause much problems and were therefore ignored.
So perhaps the Germans phasing out the Panzer IV will cause a them to look a bit more into the matter. Then again they apparently ignored the effects of heavier and stronger German guns (like the long gun of the Panzer IV), so there might not be much of a reaction after all.
NothingNow
Banned
Yeah. That said, there's also the possibility that they'd do everything but bring the M26 over. They could just start using T27 turrets on Sherman chassis, or phase the 75mm Sherman out sooner, and rush more M36s with the 90mm HVAP shells and 76mm Shermans to Europe.
Neither would be a perfect counter to a 36 ton Panther, but they'd fit Leslie McNair's position regarding Logistics, and would be good enough.