Germans adopt the Pz IV as their MBT in 1938

[Deleted member 1487]

A Panzer IV chassis cost more than a Panzer III chassis, same thing with the turret. The panzer division needed an tank with good anti tank capabilities and a tank with anti infantry capability.

They could use the same turret. The Pz IV was marginally more expensive and that cost would have been removed with the economy of scale saving by having one chassis in production for all AFV needs. The Pz IV could do both AT and AP roles, which the Pz III couldn't. Prior to 1939 the Pz III was less produced than the Pz IV and its production capacity was seriously underutilized, so its not that hard to convert to the Pz IV early on when production was low, demand was low, and capacity was lower than later on, so it would be cheaper to convert (or just build Pz IV capacity in the first place).

German generals thought that a 37mm was enough for anti tank capability (Oh Marx!, how they were wrong). So from a rational point of view (without hindsight) what do you do ?

Not at all, but the decision makers decided that rather than spending money to upgrade their AT guns and their tank guns to 50mms (they wanted an economy of scale by standardizing AT weapons in tanks and towed guns), they would stick with the 37mm and rely on Panzerjägers to kill tanks. Which seems silly, because prior to 1939 there were less than 200 Pz IIIs produced and over 200 Pz IVs produced. The Pz IV could take the same exact turret as the Pz III.

You build the smallest possible tank with that gun and the crew you need because it is usually cheaper.

Sure, but that benefit if wiped out if you have multiple different models and less economy of scale. Plus the Pz III was only marginally smaller than the Pz IV.

Meanwhile you continue the bigger tank development because you still need an anti infantry tank (and you ignore the fact that it is exactly the same as a StuG but with a turret and bigger and costlier).

How much costlier?

In fact, what would be a more rational move from a military and industrial point of view would have been to replace the Panzer IV with StuG III.
Same chassis than you main tank, same gun than the Panzer IV, especially as you don't really need that much gun mobility when you goal is fighting infantry (which is static compared to a tank).Swithcing to a Panzer IV chassis only would cost money (cost more than what they are already building) and time

So why did they even build the Pz IV in the first place if the StuG was just as good? Obviously there was some sort of advantage seen in the Pz IV chassis over the Pz III.

(why do you think they never retooled the Czech plants that produced the T38 ?

Because they were using masses of 38(t)s in the field until 1942 by which time it was easier to shoehorn the chassis into various other roles than bite the bullet and retool; its a bit of a silly thing really, because retooling of the lines wouldn't have been that hard, as output was pretty low, but irrationality in production by that point of the war was not uncommon.

It cost money and time during which the plant produce zip. It is the same reason why the Soviet never switched to the A44 or any other improved T34, as it would have disrupted production).

They switched to the T34/85, which was a significant change over from the T34 of 1941. Not only that, but they dropped the KV series and went with the IS series. They phased out the BTs and adopted various other models of light tanks. Just like the Germans phased out the Pz III and 38(t) eventually in favor of the Pz IV, V, and VI.

2. Stop citing "statistics" especially without any sources.

Click on the links I posted, they are sourced.

Kill count in WWII are highly dubious, especially when you know how the armies counted differently. For example one german stuka pilot (Hans-Ulrich Rudel) claimed some incredible kills (500 tanks). US army recon units estimated that the Air Force pilots doing ground support where not really accurate in their kill claims (they estimated that only 1 kill was legit for 10 kill claimed). And then you have some incredible examples of "creative accounting" from the german army. Truth is that there is no (to my knowledge) numbers of the reconstructions of tanks by either side, and thus production statistics are almost meaningless. What if the Germans rebuild 20000 tanks from the ground up ? What if the Soviet almost never did it ? Combine that with the dubious kill claims, and you have a very different figure from your "video gamer" kill claims (that also ignore the fact that the first role of Soviet armour was not fighting other tanks, but operational mobility, while the germans became obsessed with making tanks that could achieve a better kill count, guess whose solution is better ?).

Sure, but the Soviets have their admission of losses in armor, as did the Germans. Both also cited their repair rates as well. All the information is out there and in the links I posted (as well as several others I didn't that confirmed the totals in what I posted). Claims are disregarded now, some 70 years after the war and loss numbers are based on admitted losses within Soviet and German records, which is why there has been enormous revision of the details of the battle of Kursk for one, which saw Soviet and German kill claims heavily revised now that we have access to Soviet archives (and captured German documents) that give us the real picture of what happened. No one takes Rudel's claims seriously anymore, nor are claims looked at by historians for the latest rounds of histories.

So the latest figures of Soviet and Axis losses are listed in my post, not claims by either side, just admitted losses. I couldn't find repair stats, but from what I've read about German losses, they didn't count repaired armor as lost, so their losses include only total write offs. The Soviets had a poor repair system it turns out, so didn't repair very much, just replaced it with new production. So some of their losses were repaired, but not much, as they operated on a different philosophy, as they had the production to make up losses, rather than 'waste time' repairing significantly damaged tanks.

Panzer IV were as vulnerable to french 47mm (or even the long 37mm) than Panzer III so it won't change a thing.

Right, which is why I don't posit any changes until after 1941.

 

[Ian Hathaway]

From mid 1937 to late 1940, attempts were made by Krupp and Daimler-Benz to standardize the production of Panzerkampfwagen III and Panzerkampfwagen IV (from Ausf C to Ausf E) and one prototype based on Panzer IV Ausf E with new large roadwheels and FAMO suspension was produced – PzKpfw IV Ausf E mit Schachtellaufwerk.

So from this quote found on actungpanzer.com it looks like from the very first production models there were attempts to standardise. So the German military did recognise there was a need, they just didn't follow through with it.

As for the StuG it wasn't introduced until after the war had begun so I think that can be taken out of the equation as an alternative for the Panzer 4.

 

[Somua2]

Of 38t's and the evolution of armament.

The same goes for the Pz 38(t), which was pressed into service in 1939 due to the lack of war models like the Pz III and IV. In fact reading the German wikipedia links for the III and IV, it seems production capacity for these models was seriously underutilized pre-war, as Hitler wasn't planning on war until 1942, so didn't have the military go full bore with production of these types, so that materials could go to expanding production capacity and build up other prestige projects like the West Wall. What's even more bizarre to me is that the Pz IV production was higher than Pz III prior to 1939, even though the Pz III was supposed to be the mainstay war model for the Panzer Division.

I think you bring up a great point. Based on the great late war increase in the production of 38t chasis, apparently without expanding plant and equipment, I've often wondered what was the actual early to mid war production capacity.

Even if the Germans had decided to concentrate on the Pz IV, I don't think they would have abandoned the 38t chasis. It was just too useful for tasks (self propelled SiG, 105mm art., infantry antitank gun etc.) that the IV was wastefully large for.

Those AFV's were real force multipliers. Again I just wonder how many of those vehicles could have been produced with adequate provision of resources.

I don't think its coincidence that the T-34A, Grant, I believe early version Sherman and planned French G1 gravitated toward a 75mm of about 30 calibers. If the Germans had concentrated at an early point of the PIV, I think it would have been suggested to lengthen the 75L24 a bit to 75L30 to address both soft and hard targets. Especially if the Germans had a sense of the armor thickness possessed by the S35 and late 1930's Char tanks.

 

[Garrison]

If you're going to fight enemy tanks you don't built a large machine. Look at the Matilda II, its TINY, its got a low profile and is very narrow too. The French tanks were for the most part fairly small save the Char-1Bis which was an old design. Tanks only got larger as requirements for bigger guns, better engines and more protection forced the development of larger machines.

And prewar there is zero driver to go to such a larger more capable machine. Yes some people may have thought about such issues and the benefits of standardization but as the history of WWII shows such people were largely ignored in Nazi Germany, and in other countries for that matter but in Germany there was an active preference for competing projects all vying for the Führer's attention and the Panzer II and IV were designed and built by different powerful companies neither of which would have willingly have built the others vehicle(you can also see such factors at work in the failure to replace the Me109 with the Fw180).

Even in the depths of the war Nazi Germany still couldn't bring itself to standardize its tanks, hence the Panther and Tiger, and then the Tiger II, why would they do so in peace time when they have different corporate interests to keep happy?

And mention of the Matilda brings up the point that the Germans didn't even realize they needed a 50mm gun on their tanks until after they met the heavily protected Allied tanks in France and the Western desert and even then they decided the 50mm was good enough. It seems at every step of the way the Germans had to have their noses rubbed in it before they upgraded their armoured capability.

So Nazi Germany needs a very powerful driver to change policy and override the complaints and politicking of two major manufacturers; a feat they never managed in the war, to standardize and acquire a capability they don't realize they need.

 

[Andras]

The Germans had considered the 5cm gun for the PzIVE once they had to fight the French and British tanks but they canceled the ordered tanks after the quick victory. What if they kept that order open and the 280 PzIVE tanks produced from Dec40 to Apr41 had the 5cm gun?

Would the run of PzIVFs beginning in Apr41 have continued the 5cm guns or reverted to the 7.5L24?

 

[sharlin]

But again what's the driver. The high velocity 37mm gun was perfectly capable of taking on French and British tanks, it just required better training and tactics to deal with the tougher machines to get round their flank. Also don't forget that under the Blitzkrieg doctrine you've got Stuka's on tap. They are your tank killers when needs be.

There was no visible need for a longer caliber 75mm gun because that gun was an infantry support weapon to lob a HE shell in support of the Panzer III's. It was a pritty world wide doctrine that you'd have an anti-tank tank, and a support tank to fire HE. Only the French went against this with their Char and that's because the tank was big enough to fit two different weapons. The Soviet T28 with its 76mm howitzer was a support tank that would fire HE in support of BTs and T-26's with their high velocity 47mm guns being tank killers. The Germans went the same way with their Panzer III and IV combo whilst us Brits went derp and thought machine guns were all that was needed and the howitzer equipped machines could ONLY fire smoke shells.

 

[Garrison]

So from this quote found on actungpanzer.com it looks like from the very first production models there were attempts to standardise. So the German military did recognise there was a need, they just didn't follow through with it.

As for the StuG it wasn't introduced until after the war had begun so I think that can be taken out of the equation as an alternative for the Panzer 4.

All of that based on one unattributed quote? Forgive me but that seems like a stretch and there may be a bit of hindsight at work with the author of the website. Even if it did reflect some larger body of opinion inside the the military or production ministries it could be as readily taken to work against the suggestion of the OP since you could conclude that standardization was suggested and actively rejected by the Nazi regime, or indeed that the manufacturers involved couldn't agree on division of labour and a design; all too common then and now...

 

[Andras]

But again what's the driver. The high velocity 37mm gun was perfectly capable of taking on French and British tanks, it just required better training and tactics to deal with the tougher machines to get round their flank. Also don't forget that under the Blitzkrieg doctrine you've got Stuka's on tap. They are your tank killers when needs be.

There was no visible need for a longer caliber 75mm gun because that gun was an infantry support weapon to lob a HE shell in support of the Panzer III's. It was a pritty world wide doctrine that you'd have an anti-tank tank, and a support tank to fire HE. Only the French went against this with their Char and that's because the tank was big enough to fit two different weapons. The Soviet T28 with its 76mm howitzer was a support tank that would fire HE in support of BTs and T-26's with their high velocity 47mm guns being tank killers. The Germans went the same way with their Panzer III and IV combo whilst us Brits went derp and thought machine guns were all that was needed and the howitzer equipped machines could ONLY fire smoke shells.

The same driver that caused the Germans to order the 5cm gun in May 1941 shortly before Barbarossa, which in turn got overtaken by events and turned into the 7.5L43 armed F2s.

The same difficulty in penetrating the Matilidas in France could be extended to North Africa and the need for the 5cm gun there as well.

 

[sharlin]

Well there was the idea of mating the Panzer IV and III at least in components and parts to form the imaginatively named Panzer III/IV but if I recall it was simply too complex and a bit of a frankenstein of a machine to work reliably and it wasn't pressed with.

 

[sharlin]

The same driver that caused the Germans to order the 5cm gun in May 1941 shortly before Barbarossa, which in turn got overtaken by events and turned into the 7.5L43 armed F2s.

The same difficulty in penetrating the Matilidas in France could be extended to North Africa and the need for the 5cm gun there as well.

But thats after hard won experience. Not nazi-hindsight. A 37mm round was capable of dealing with a S-35 frontally but so too was the Frenchman's 47mm gun and the 37mm was useless frontally against a Char or a Matilda II, but then again in the battle of france there were no Matilda II's, just a bunch of the MG armed Mark I's. Going back to the standard french 47mm gun it was a fairly low velocity gun, but their machines armour meant that they could get into range where it was able to penetrate without being picked off at long range.

There was no need to upgun when there was seemingly no requirement to. The 50mm gun was the answer to the supprisignly tough UK infantry support tanks and French machines and it was again felt it was superior to what the Germans knew about the Soviet machines. Don't forget that the Germans knew about the vast majority of Soviet machines and they had heard a new medium and heavy were in the works and we can assume that they assumed they would be a development of the T-28 and BT series, not the radical changes the T-34 and KV-1 were which is why when they were encountered they were such a shock.

 

[Ian Hathaway]

But again what's the driver. The high velocity 37mm gun was perfectly capable of taking on French and British tanks, it just required better training and tactics to deal with the tougher machines to get round their flank. Also don't forget that under the Blitzkrieg doctrine you've got Stuka's on tap. They are your tank killers when needs be.

There was no visible need for a longer caliber 75mm gun because that gun was an infantry support weapon to lob a HE shell in support of the Panzer III's. It was a pritty world wide doctrine that you'd have an anti-tank tank, and a support tank to fire HE. Only the French went against this with their Char and that's because the tank was big enough to fit two different weapons. The Soviet T28 with its 76mm howitzer was a support tank that would fire HE in support of BTs and T-26's with their high velocity 47mm guns being tank killers. The Germans went the same way with their Panzer III and IV combo whilst us Brits went derp and thought machine guns were all that was needed and the howitzer equipped machines could ONLY fire smoke shells.

The Panzer 3’s development began with a conflict between the Ordnance Department and the Inspector for Mechanized Troops about the main armament. The Ordnance Department wanted the 37mm gun, while the Inspector for Mechanized Troops demanded 50mm gun. In the end, 37mm gun was chosen as the main armament of the new vehicle.

As Wiking has already said the decision was based on the fact that the infantry was already equipped with standard 37mm anti-tank gun as well as that only one gun and one type of ammunition had to be produced. However the turret and turret ring were still capable of mounting the heavier 50mm gun as it was selected by the Inspector for Mechanized Troops.

 

[Garrison]

The Germans had considered the 5cm gun for the PzIVE once they had to fight the French and British tanks but they canceled the ordered tanks after the quick victory. What if they kept that order open and the 280 PzIVE tanks produced from Dec40 to Apr41 had the 5cm gun?

Would the run of PzIVFs beginning in Apr41 have continued the 5cm guns or reverted to the 7.5L24?

Since I think the driver for change was primarily the Western desert I don't think they have the motivation at that point in time. Outside of Arras the Matilda's never really had the chance to show their capability in France and the poor handling of the French tanks likewise limited their ability to show up the flaws in the German tank's. It's in the desert campaign that the inadequacy of the 37mm armed tanks becomes clear and again the Germans fall into the same complacency after they address the issue there; helped by the British introduction of lightly armoured cruiser tanks.

 

[Garrison]

But thats after hard won experience. Not nazi-hindsight. A 37mm round was capable of dealing with a S-35 frontally but so too was the Frenchman's 47mm gun and the 37mm was useless frontally against a Char or a Matilda II, but then again in the battle of france there were no Matilda II's, just a bunch of the MG armed Mark I's.

Sorry Sharlin but there were Mark IIs at the battle of Arras and were all but unstoppable until they ran into German 88mm anti-aircraft guns.

 

[sharlin]

The Panzer 3’s development began with a conflict between the Ordnance Department and the Inspector for Mechanized Troops about the main armament. The Ordnance Department wanted the 37mm gun, while the Inspector for Mechanized Troops demanded 50mm gun. In the end, 37mm gun was chosen as the main armament of the new vehicle.

As Wiking has already said the decision was based on the fact that the infantry was already equipped with standard 37mm anti-tank gun as well as that only one gun and one type of ammunition had to be produced. However the turret and turret ring were still capable of mounting the heavier 50mm gun as it was selected by the Inspector for Mechanized Troops.

And I wish the British tank designers had shown such foresight and built such redundancy into our tanks. Imagine a Matilda with a 6lber. If I recall there wasn't a 50mm gun available at the time and the 37mm gun was ready to go. Guns for tanks are one of the most expensive parts to develop design and test so it makes rational sense that instead of waiting for a 50mm gun that may or may not deliver you go with a gun you KNOW will work hence the choice for the 37mm gun.

 

[sharlin]

Sorry Sharlin but there were Mark IIs at the battle of Arras and were all but unstoppable until they ran into German 88mm anti-aircraft guns.

There was? My bad I thought there was only a small number of Mark I's.

 

[Garrison]

There was? My bad I thought there was only a small number of Mark I's.

No, they were there. From the Wiki page:

The Matilda was first used in combat by the 7th Royal Tank Regiment in France in 1940. Only 23 of the unit's tanks were Matilda IIs; the rest of the British Infantry Tanks in France were A11 Matildas. Its 2-pounder gun was comparable to other tank guns in the 37 to 45 mm range. Due to the thickness of its armour, it was largely immune to the guns of the German tanks and anti-tank guns in France. The famous 88 mm anti-aircraft guns were pressed into service as the only effective counter. In the counter-attack at Arras British Matilda IIs (and Matilda Is) were able to briefly disrupt German progress but being unsupported, their losses were high. All vehicles surviving the battles around Dunkirk were abandoned when the BEF evacuated.

There are a fair number of sources that suggest Arras helped tip Hitler into issuing the halt order that stopped the army's pursuit of the BEF; possibly making the Matilda II the most successful tank of WWII.

 

[sharlin]

Hah i'd not call them that, but they were a good machine, one has to wonder what would have happened if we'd had the forsight of most 'what if the germans do this..' posts and had the Matilda II as the main tank in British service. But then we'd be accused of doing a UK-wank...

 

[MattII]

And I wish the British tank designers had shown such foresight and built such redundancy into our tanks. Imagine a Matilda with a 6lber.

Slightly better, but still lacking in mobility. I think the Valentine had promise, and could have done well as a mid-way tank (more heavily armoured but slower than the cruiser tanks, faster but more lightly armoured than the infantry tanks), if it had received a proper engine and gun.

 

[oldironside]

Hah i'd not call them that, but they were a good machine, one has to wonder what would have happened if we'd had the forsight of most 'what if the germans do this..' posts and had the Matilda II as the main tank in British service. But then we'd be accused of doing a UK-wank...

I for one wouldn't accuse you of that. There is a world of difference between a "What would have happened if one decision would have been made, even if it was highly unlikely OTL" and Ovaron-esque levels of clairvoyancy affecting decision after decision.

This thred, I would argue, is the former.

 

[sharlin]

The Valentine was a good tank, it just needed to be bigger then they could have worked in the improvements you said there.