What if the Panther tank was flawless

At 70 caliber lengths that's not possible. At 50-58 it is. Hence my idea for the 8.35cm gun.
Why is it not possible to load less propellant (or perhaps use less energetic propellant ?) to allow an HE shell to be fired with a lower muzzle velocity from a high velocity gun ? I seem to recall that the U.S. 76 mm tank gun had a reduced (propellant) charge HE round at some point.
 

Deleted member 1487

Why is it not possible to load less propellant (or perhaps use less energetic propellant ?) to allow an HE shell to be fired with a lower muzzle velocity from a high velocity gun ? I seem to recall that the U.S. 76 mm tank gun had a reduced (propellant) charge HE round at some point.
Don't know. Even the KWK36 had significantly lower HE muzzle velocity than their AP, but the KWK42 did not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.5_cm_KwK_42#Ammunition
According to this the HE had a 1,130 m/s muzzle velocity! This is higher than even the 88 APCR!:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_KwK_36#PzGr._40_.28APCR.29
 
And to rehash a topic from a prior thread I've never seen a good explanation as to why there wasn't a greater use of lower velocity HE shells with better fragmentation effects in World War Two.
The Soviets didn't mind cluttering up their tank sigts with extra scales for different ammo.
T-34-76GS.jpg
tsh19_100mm_gunsight_zps54297683.jpg

Most other nations wanted the ammo to have similar ballistic performance.

But Soviet shells were hampered by poor HE filling
 
I wonder if these optics were the cause of the Soviet tanks having such lopsided casualties in various tank battles, perhaps impacting their combat range.

Edited.
 
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I wonder if these optics were the cause of the Soviet tanks having such lopsided casualties in various tank battles, perhaps impacting their combat range.

Edited.

Not really.
http://www.panzer-war.com/page37.html
goes into the sights of different countries.
Now the USSR had their main optic plant lost in the invasion, so their secondary plants were not as good as the plant that was setup with German assistance/licenses
before the war, but quality picked up in 1943

The big problem was lack of decent visibility around the tank, a good optic still gives a tiny view of the World.

periscopes and vision blocks were really poor, and the resulting lack of situational awareness is what got them killed.
 
The Soviets didn't mind cluttering up their tank sigts with extra scales for different ammo.

I believe post war British tanks did too, for HESH and APFSDS.

Stories abound of gunners using the wrong scale and launching APFSDS rounds into low earth orbit after aiming on the HESH scale.
 
I believe post war British tanks did too, for HESH and APFSDS.

Stories abound of gunners using the wrong scale and launching APFSDS rounds into low earth orbit after aiming on the HESH scale.

Heard some DAT (DumbAssTankers) speak of that with M48s with the wrong ammo selected
 
Just curious how do you envision this happening ? (Ie. amongst other changes do the Germans get the machine tools and materials needed to mass produce the originally intended final drives or is the design of the Panther changed so that a reliable tank can be mass produced by the historical German WW 2 economy ?)

I mean with the panther being terrible and all, what if they would have given it an engine as well made as the T-34's or just straight up copy the T-34's engine and use it for the Panther and along with it give it a much better design with perhaps less armour, less complicated tracks and maybe a turret design that wouldn't let shells bounce right into the Panther's weak spot.
FvXaR8M.jpg
 
And how would this be achieved? Are we going with Alien Space Bats "just is", or do we need to establish how this happens in the first place?

With a new design that requires fewer materials needed to build the Panther, blueprints that are not as complicated not as the old design and with the engine of the T-34 or something even better.
 
what if they would have given it an engine as well made as the T-34's or just straight up copy the T-34's engine and use it for the Panther

The Maybach really wasn't the problem, other than some initial cooling trouble and fuel leakage causing fires, it was actually far more reliable than the V-2 engine, that in some cases, failed in a few hundred KM of travel, and less than 100hr of operation before rebuilding http://www.kampfpanzer.de/propulsion/v-2

By 1944, the V-2 was a mature powerplant, and very reliable
 
With a new design that requires fewer materials needed to build the Panther, blueprints that are not as complicated not as the old design and with the engine of the T-34 or something even better.
And..... how are all of those going to be achieved? I don't want to sound insulting or anything, but frankly this goes beyond my suspension of belief. You might as well just butterfly away what we had and just go with the original simpler designs.
 
And..... how are all of those going to be achieved? I don't want to sound insulting or anything, but frankly this goes beyond my suspension of belief. You might as well just butterfly away what we had and just go with the original simpler designs.
Likewise. See, the Panther wasn't inherently unreliable, but as the end of the war the Germans were slacking off in the QC department, meaning that more and more dud parts were getting installed. It was the same issue with the early T-34s. To make the panther more reliable, you have to rejig the scenario so that Germany isn't so desperate for tanks they'll even accept stuff that wouldn't actually make it to the battlefield before breaking down.
 
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The larger bore presumably would have lead to a more effective HE projectile ?

Given the tungsten shortages the Germans had increasing bore diameter is probably also a good way to get better AT performance but the devil is in the details.
But fewer shells on board and slower fire rate as they'd be heavier and more difficult to maneuver.
 
I believe post war British tanks did too, for HESH and APFSDS.

Stories abound of gunners using the wrong scale and launching APFSDS rounds into low earth orbit after aiming on the HESH scale.

Just as I was leaving the BA the new APFSDS rounds were being issued and we heard that a Brasshat wanted to see just how far the new dart would fly. They ran a Cheiftain up a 20 degree ramp elevated the gun to max (irc 20 degrees) and let fly from a nice warm barrel. Depending on how gullible the listener was it varied in range from its in orbit round the Moon, it hit Concorde over the Atlantic and 100,000 yards.
 

Deleted member 1487

But fewer shells on board and slower fire rate as they'd be heavier and more difficult to maneuver.
Actually no. The 83.5mm gun would be significantly shorter than the OTL Panther gun, so easier to maneuver, as there is less barrel overhang.
As to the shells, the 83.5mm would actually be roughly the same size as the overall shell of the L70 KWK42 shell. Below the yellow shell is the KWK36 Tiger gun, the 75mm round to the left of it is the KWK42 Panther gun. The 83.5mm round would be shorter and slightly less fat than the 88 round. As you can see the round would be actually thinner than the 75mm round because it doesn't need to be bottlenecked to be short enough to fit in the turret. Since the 83.5mm round would be a bit shorter than the 88 due to the barrel being less long it might actually end up shorter or the same length as the KWK42 round AND thinner. The result though is that it would have less AP abilities at longer range.
tankger.JPG
 
It would only delay the inevitable by a month,but having more tanks to supply could put a strain on German logistics at the end leading to a faster collapse
 
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