delete013

This wasn't a drawing board prototype.. 2 is based on panther 1 and tiger b components, so entirely plausible thing. Thinned roof armour and lighter turret to compensate for thicker front. Not sure what they added to the drive train to get along with 50+ tonnes..

How can you judge? Less slope than that at Pershing's trial but otherwise no other specific detail. Seems like less reliable than Pz3-4 or Pershing. Weak engine and final drives. But nothing seems vehicle breaking, like the Brits want us to believe.

"broke down three times"?

Don't forget that Germans discontinued most of their regular projects by 1945 and switched to Volkssturm improvisations such as Hetzers and Volksjäger. But this has nothing to do with the design skill. If the country managed to function at it did in 1943 they would likely restart the panther 2 development and have them in 1945 if necessary. But the panther 2 proposed in 1943 was apparently botched due to satisfactory side plates against anti-tank rifles. With redesigned turret and suspension (likely removed double torsion bars) and increased frontal armour: it was not needed. Later on only seriously disfunctional communication between Panzerkommission and the industry would be an alternative explanation. If war went better for the Germans, Allies would face smth akin to this: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/firearmcentral/images/2/21/Panther_II.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20180503090747 I consider t-54 one of the best designs in tank history but panther 2 would be at least on the same level.

It's not like there exist a built panther 2.. But do you read you own link? Soviets have had no "glaring" issues beyond the engine. Engine got more or less fixed and for that short lifespan worked okay. But we made a construct based on two British tests, one opinion of "half of panthers in Normandy had broken final drives", French post war opinion and Guderians report on failing final drives in all tanks and issues in the mud. And this construct is then reduced to the worst case of 150km lifespan, backed up by the interpretation that train based relocation was due to entirely failed drive train design. So why didn't panther broke down on Soviet trials? How did the British manage to ruin 6 vehicles? Why was suspension estimated as good by the Soviets, while the British experienced troubles? And pershings would be the smallest of a problem.

That moved like a heavy? Nono, entire shell length matters. 5kg lighter and 7cm shorter for the same penetration. Btw, did pershing have automatic casing ejection? Yes, entirely. Why don't you make yours. Would be interesting to compare.

You remind me of Liddell Hart, insisting how reality of German maneuver warfare conformed to his ideas.

The fact that German medium has the weight of an allied heavy and heavies go beyond 50tonnes tells a lot about the discrepancy in automotive technology. Panther was medium because of mobility. No way around it. If armour was bad then No need for emotional sweeping statements. The topic is quite interesting to discuss and by no means one sided. Let's see the benefits of German aiming arrangement. - TZF 12 had 28deg fov on 2,5x magnification. This is a pretty comfortable observation device. - Zooming from 2,5x to 5,0x is much smoother than shifting from periscope to another device. - better and more reliable optics - Together with convenient distance measuring procedure and flat ballistic curve it makes up the highest first hit chance system of the war. Panther's gunner had a cumulative 1km distance error margin on 1km for open targets, giving almost 100% hit probability. - Commander had better vision and he primarily spots and delegates targets. Incalculating the downsides: - clumsy turret turning, dependent on the driver and the engine - no panoramic periscope - the only sight bound to the turret direction - sights of the rest of the crew is fixed - lack of duplicate turning switch for the commander one can speculate that in theory, panther had somewhat worse aiming arrangement. An advantage long range and disadvantage short-mid range. The crucial thing is how much weight each of these factors have. I believe without tankers we can really only guess. I would imagine smth like this: 1. Both identify a target at about the same speed (panther's commander has advantage but pershing has better help from other crew members) 2. pershing turns the turret and the gunner acknowledges the target faster 3. panther's gunner zooms on the target and estimates distance better and hits the target faster (higher chance of first hit, maybe faster reload due to shell size). On shorter range the distance estimation falls away and the turret turning and target acknowledgement are aggravated for the panther and vice-versa. I consider that the link engine-driver-gunner the weakest, because two important roles interrupt each other. The important question is now what ranges did combat take place. Most ranges in W.Europe were apparently fall in two groups, ~300m or ~700m. The unresolved questions are: pershing's hit accuracy and from what distance is range estimation relevant for its M3. Pershing's aiming procedure. Sherman's was afaik quite slow. Rough range estimate by commander, ranging shot then corrected shot. But Pershing has high velocity cannon, flatter curve. And better armour, armament and still better mobility. And all you want to compare it with are tanks that were too late for war. You don't actually believe that panthers wouldn't get upgraded too? The height could have been indeed lower and transmission and suspension simpler, as we all agree, I believe. But with transmission in the back the nice agility goes away. It's all reasonable trade-offs for dire years of 1944-45 but not for 1943 when the decisions were made. Later the decisions have more to do with production economy than design. Weren't there only <2k produced and about 2-300 until may 45? But yeah, "introduced" in november 44. What does that say about Soviet equipment procurement? Here we are, at never penetrated in battle meme. Is typical of US scene. Isn't written, doesn't exist. Then by coincidence are issues conveniently absent in the literature.

(Up) Panther's cupola periscope. Also on tigers and stugs. (Down) The panthers dead angle when buttoned up. Not as bad but clearly blind to what is happening near the vehicle. Compared to US cupola: http://www.theshermantank.com/wp-content/uploads/COMMANDERS-CUPOLA-7054771-ASSEMBLED-VIEW-IMPROVED-flat-918x1600.png

Comparison of drive train and turret arrangements. Showcasing the balanced but high panther hull and compact t-55.

Sorry for sabotaging your Germany-bashing thread. Universally liked is irrelevant if you had none before. Today Abrams uses "German" cupola arrangement..

Yep got them. Focus on strategic mobility is obvious. Much less on tactical. I do agree that Soviets really tailored their tanks to fit their numbers and terrain towards Europe at the expense of other features. What numbers did you take? Isn't that for 30deg angle? Ideally it wouldn't be longer. The difference is in the skill of the designers. Germans paid attention to it and had good crew compartment to engine bay ratio. More choice for turret placement and more space for complex gearbox. Ergo, throwing transmission in the back wasn't as straightforward as people want to believe. Long after ww2 were there only two general solutions to the issue, either extending the hull and making the vehicle heavier and less agile or simplifying the steering with another heap of downsides. This is why transversely mounted transmissions are an achievement. Only with 1000+ PS engines was the power loss at turning reasonably solved. With zero test info or anything beyond a prototype, I am fairly convinced that it didn't work. If ordinary pershing moved reasonably it couldn't with a few tons more. GAF was good for a sherman. Let's be honest, it wasn't in the HL230 class, with or without regulator. Panther's steering was quite more advanced and an important part of tactical mobility. Dispensing with it makes the designer's life much simpler but that of a tanker worse. I think being able to have more free leg space is much less important than being able to turn and drive out of opponents sight.

Thanks for the links! Especially interesting is the Pershing test. It gives better impression on mobility. I am confused as to why the mobility is so emphasized in American literature. Seems fine, except that off road speed test was not performed and the agility was a problem. The test about the panther is however seems quite positive. Apart from confirming the inability to neutral steer it has few of the British problems. It confirms my assumption that the British tests are quite lackluster. I don't know how you consider panther worse. Evaluated as a heavy tank, Pershing clearly didn't impress with firepower nor armour. Panther on the other hand seems good in this respect, even if it is medium. Plus it was nimble.

As I said, nothing special, while cent is more comfy. It would be nice to know that Soviet testing better. Link? So why did Americans have so many troubles? Poor off road mobility is but in every book on Pershing. Details are as usually scarce. With such armour, if tank gets hit to incapacitate the driver or gun sight, then the crew bails. I would understand if it was some exceptional vehicle. Panoramic telescope windows vs. direct vision slits. kwk42, not 40, please. Upgunning or uparmouring overturned the suspension balance and ended up similar to the jumbo. Super pershing was leaning forward. If turret was more to the back however.. No decent engine, no tactical mobility. Unless there is some remarkable explanation that I do not know of.. My bad then.

Pershing engines burned out and died in Korea. This is akin to early panthers. The comparison in context of late ww2 and the numbers is reasonable but putting pershings and panthers on equal ground is just cruel.

I never heard any praise of Pershing's comfort. Apart from broad turret ring, it seems rather cramped. Cent on the other hand is pretty famous for its spaciousness. It is also the biggest. Pershing had the richness of dubious redundancies. Why two gun sights? Why did the radioman have a reserve steering set? Why didn't it have two level magnification in a gun sight? This makes it so much easier to observe and aim. Commander's cupola is useless for observation. Those glass slits certainly don't offer good vision. Caped AP shells are bigger but offer about the same effect as smaller PzGr39. Engine bay should have been smaller, not bigger. It pushed the turret to the front and sealed any chances of an upgrade. Armour angle is also smaller due to this. Mobility is obvious also an issue and a medium with poor agility is an easy target. Turret form is sub par. It features plenty of nice vertical surfaces and the inverted heart form makes the cheeks quite vulnerable to hits from 30deg angles. Mantlet also features the panther's shot trap. I seriously doubt it is a match. As biased as usual. How about an honest opinion by an American officer from Hunnicutt's book? - The Pershing story might well be summarized by the words of Captain Elmer Gray replying to the tank crews at Aachen when they asked if the Pershing was equal to the German King Tiger and Panther. His answer was, "Hell no, but it is the best tank we have yet developed and we should have had it a year earlier".

What convinced you that Germans produce propaganda and Hunnicutt or US authors don't?

Thanks for this valuable input.

Actually I don't. If there is smth that German officers indeed did lie quite reliably is war crimes. Or better, tried to hide them. They were ashamed of them.

It is. Let's quit.

It's this right? All in all, to my knowledge is such situation considered as quite "accurate", and claims honest. You likely wouldn't think so, but scroll down and check claim chart. It is highly likely that several aircraft shoot at the same bomber at the same time, especially since formation attacks were a deliberate tactic, ensuring good results. I think an attacker would be attributed a kill each, but I am not sure. Some claims were actually refused. The attackers were scattered by mustangs afterwards, so they likely couldn't observe the final faith of the bombers and could have wrongly counted some surviving bombers as kills. Claims of Hand-Joachim Marseille are one of the most rigorously checked: Wikipedia has a nice chart of claims: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Joachim_Marseille#Victory_claims His claims are corroborated between 65%-75%, depending on the author, and are considered "relatively" accurate. Also note that there is quite some resistance in admitting the losses, such as 1 September 42.

You put not a drop of though in considering that the tropes your indiscriminately accepted might be easily proven wrong? If you troubled yourself a tad more you would know that Luftwaffe had the most rigorous claim procedure among the belligerent countries, requiring a witness to confirm a claim. It was not unusual for an actual kill to be refused at the ministry due to breaking a procedure. Germans were also the only I know that sanctioned fake claiming. On the other hand, kill claims in RAF were considered a morale boost and even known overclaiming was deliberately ignored "to keep the spirits high". I assume I don't have to mention the US army air force. But hey, dirty Germans are gentlemen and don't push this topic that would make their former counterparts look bad. This genius logic, if there are more enemies I will shoot them more down right? Or isn't that I will shoot less since I will fight 5 planes instead of 1? So the only factor has to be? Aircraft or skill. Why not accept the most obvious explanation. Germans had better pilots that could do more sorties, had better schooling, better organisation and great planes = about hundred three digit aces. Yes Allies had some good pilots too. I'll correct this for you. Overclaiming was present in all air forces but German kills are the most credible, US the least, everybody offended. I you want a descriptive sample of national bias check this gem from Moran's video on air to ground tank claims: Various <Allied> studies showed that <their> planes had a negligent anti-tank abilities, especially the rocket equipped. Nobody tested German planes. What if Germans had better anti-tank air arm? You can't simply generalise.

Did he? Where? So what was it? Doubling claims or not counting at all? So what were the kill rings for? Days without food? Even if you discard post-war writing and propaganda stories you are still left with claims from combat reports. Those have nothing to do with propaganda or myth making and are dead serious stuff. Those claims align quite nicely with actual loss numbers in the east, adjusted for repaired tanks and with a variance of occasional double counting or non reported kills. They also align surprisingly well with British losses in Normandy. Anw, to my knowledge, kill claims were not institutionalised, as were in the air force and started as cumulative sums of stug battalions. They varied from unit to unit, some counting, some not. But the hobby was spread among dedicated tank killers, i.e. heavy tank battalions and panzerjägers. None of this is 100% reliable but there is no indication that these numbers were invented. Propaganda ministry, like in other countries, sought over-performers and made emboldened story around them, rounding up their kills or pinning platoon kills on one commander. Beyond that bling there were still top soldiers.

Who had better mobility, panther or pershing?

Underpowered, too slow, bad off road. Ground clearance was too low. Considering that it started as a medium and got steadily bigger it makes me believe that the designers exceeded the limits of their design. What they got was neither satisfactory heavy tank, nor a medium. Attempts to make it competitive against tiger B failed because the suspension was overloaded and the hull out of balance. Now, you mentioned those trials and I have nothing much to go with here apart from Hunnicutt and some public "truths". Might also have been a case of institutional inefficiency, who knows.