View Full Version : Best German tank of WWII?
Tiger II? Panther? Talking firepower, armor (i.e. ability to withstand damage), reliability, etc.
Not a tank guy myself but I'll wager someone has an idea or opinion. Averageman comes to mind.
Panther (PzKpfw V) in terms of balanced performance.
The Tiger with the 88 technically had a better gun but it was horrendously heavy and maintenance intensive. And also very expensive.
One thing I've noticed in pics of German tanks is that the treads were WIDE azz things, ostensibly to keep them from getting stuck in soft terrain.
Averageman
12-24-22, 19:10
Very interesting topic.
Most people have a picture in theor mind about "German Tanks" the reality is a bit different then Tiger's running amok.
The Panzer III's and IV's did most of the heavy lifting in France and Africa. The development of the Tiger was in some ways a direct responce to the success of the Russian T-34 and experiance with British Armor in Africa.
The Tiger is probably the most widely acclaimed but there were fewer than 1500 ever made. The King Tiger was a viable Main Battle Tank until the 1960's.
I was trained in the M48/M60, everything inside a King Tiger was familiar.
The Panther was a very good German Tank and there were, I believe 6000 made.
The German Army was pretty smart in that while fielding the Tiger in Russia they had also reworked a Thousand or so Panzer III's and IV's with a wide variety of Guns to include light Artillery.
So when you ask me which is the "Best", I would have to say those old Panzer III's and IV's were useful throughout the entire war. The Panthers were the most produced and if you were running in to Armor, it would most likely be a Panther, there were just so many of them. If I was going shopping for a Tank though it would be a Tiger.
The problem with Tigers seems to me to be that the design tolerances were to close for a MBT. Lots of tiny passage ways for oil to flow through the transmission, and these were easily clogged in the field and some were sabotaged in the factories by slave labor.
I have heard that ciggerette papers were inserted in to the transmission at the factory by slave labor in such a fashion that the paper would slowly defeat the transmission by glogging up valves.
The 88 mm gun was truely a milestone in Tank development.
Averageman
12-24-22, 19:12
One thing I've noticed in pics of German tanks is that the treads were WIDE azz things, ostensibly to keep them from getting stuck in soft terrain.
Yes they had to transport those wide treaded monsters on trains and they had a unique method to get them on a train that involved removing or switching roadwheels and track sometimes.
titsonritz
12-24-22, 19:41
The Tiger with the 88 technically had a better gun but it was horrendously heavy and maintenance intensive. And also very expensive.
Plus there weren't enough of them and on most days they didn't have the fuel to feed them. Sort of Gimli'esque: "I'm wasted on cross-country. We Dwarves are natural sprinters. Very dangerous over short distances."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMDWWFKQgLQ
The 88 mm gun was truely a milestone in Tank development.
I assume it was kin to the 88mm anti-aircraft weapon and other 88mm artillery? I recall my FIL mentioning the "German 88's" which as a grunt he was getting shelled by them, not in the air.
BTW, I just knew that as a career tread-head you'd have some insight! Thanks.
titsonritz
12-24-22, 19:42
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raAx57MHH7k
I read that the great armored conquests of 1939-1941 (France, Russia, etc) wouldn't have been successful with the Tiger and Panther as the primary tanks. They were not mechanically reliable enough to go those distances (in almost constant movement) without issues. The Panzer III and IV seem to have been up to the task.
Panther tank ...the most versatile across both fronts....especially at Kursk where it held its own..
Tiger with Porsche turret was a good tank but suffered in maintaining the fuel system and logistics...
Panzer IV. I've said it before, thank God the Germans didn't have the ability to make 60,000 of them.
I'd pick the Panther G.
One thing is the Tiger series tanks were built with a specific doctrine in mind, to attack heavily fortified positions. They were never intended to partake in extended road marches or keep up with grueling advances and definitely not hasty retreats. Like many militaries, there was some sort of drive to create unnecessary specialties (ala US Army Tank destroyer branch)
TheTigers were carried by rail to as close to the front as possible and did undergo track changes to not overhang the rail cars. The Tiger Is also required the outter set of road wheels be removed for rail transport. The Tiger II only required the track change with it's improved roadwheel layout. While definitely not invulnerable to fire, I think most were lost due to lack of suitable recovery vehicles, extensive maintenance times and inadequate spare parts supply.
The engine made no major improvements and the Panther (49t) Tiger I (63t)and Tiger II (76t) all generally used the same 700hp v12 with obvious declining performance. Tigers also required extensive crew training, the lack of which added significantly to mechanical woes.
Panther was a good tank, designed to be more of what we think of a tank to be today and perhaps set the standard. It was rushed into service for obvious reasons and had teething problems that would mostly be worked out by the G models that hit the fields in mid 1944. Still it was far cry reliability wise from other tanks but it had very thick front armor and an excellent gun. Like any tank it needs a good crew to make it effective
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Averageman
12-24-22, 21:35
I assume it was kin to the 88mm anti-aircraft weapon and other 88mm artillery? I recall my FIL mentioning the "German 88's" which as a grunt he was getting shelled by them, not in the air.
BTW, I just knew that as a career tread-head you'd have some insight! Thanks.
Exact same gun
Averageman
12-24-22, 21:46
There were still a couple of WWII German Tankers around when I was there in the '80s.
One of them I became good friends with and he would often come over for a visit. He told me a lot of tips and techniques the Germans used. Lot of low tech stuff that kept the crews together.
He was taken POW in France and lost his hand, he said he sat by a ditch for two days and the Allied vehicles never stopped comming, he said he knew then it was over.
I assume it was kin to the 88mm anti-aircraft weapon and other 88mm artillery? I recall my FIL mentioning the "German 88's" which as a grunt he was getting shelled by them, not in the air.
BTW, I just knew that as a career tread-head you'd have some insight! Thanks.
https://i.imgur.com/E14xylT.jpg
FromMyColdDeadHand
12-25-22, 00:19
Captured T34...
Panther, or a Tiger II and hope it breaks down on the way to the front....
Averageman
12-25-22, 08:08
I'd pick the Panther G.
One thing is the Tiger series tanks were built with a specific doctrine in mind, to attack heavily fortified positions. They were never intended to partake in extended road marches or keep up with grueling advances and definitely not hasty retreats. Like many militaries, there was some sort of drive to create unnecessary specialties (ala US Army Tank destroyer branch)
TheTigers were carried by rail to as close to the front as possible and did undergo track changes to not overhang the rail cars. The Tiger Is also required the outter set of road wheels be removed for rail transport. The Tiger II only required the track change with it's improved roadwheel layout. While definitely not invulnerable to fire, I think most were lost due to lack of suitable recovery vehicles, extensive maintenance times and inadequate spare parts supply.
The engine made no major improvements and the Panther (49t) Tiger I (63t)and Tiger II (76t) all generally used the same 700hp v12 with obvious declining performance. Tigers also required extensive crew training, the lack of which added significantly to mechanical woes.
Panther was a good tank, designed to be more of what we think of a tank to be today and perhaps set the standard. It was rushed into service for obvious reasons and had teething problems that would mostly be worked out by the G models that hit the fields in mid 1944. Still it was far cry reliability wise from other tanks but it had very thick front armor and an excellent gun. Like any tank it needs a good crew to make it effective
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Very smart post.
As mentioned in my earlier post I think the Panther was the "best" tank in terms of capability.
But it was not the most important tank, as others have mentioned the Panzer IV's had most of the action.
There's a pretty good book called "Panzer Aces" or similar that has seven or eight first-hand accounts of Panzer leaders during the war.
There's a good bit of detail on the issues with the panther and the tiger.
It's not necessarily that they were unreliable, especially the panther.
But the gun have to be overhauled after 50 shots or something like that. The hydraulic buffer had to be repacked or something.
And it was not something the tank crew could do, it required specialized tools and skill. So a lot of times it didn't get done, they would be forced to keep firing, and the gun would ultimately go down.
The German engineering mindset just didn't allow for field maintenance in the design.
The tiger was just too big & heavy, it couldn't cross a lot of bridges and was also a bit ungainly trying to ford creeks bypassing the bridge. And we know what happens to tanks when they're maneuverability is constrained.
But the core issue is the German manufacturing model where their tanks were manufactured in locomotive factories using those techniques.
Where the admittedly inferior Sherman and similar was made in car factories in the production was 10 to 15x with the Germans were able to do in the same amount of time.
Due to wartime restrictions/shortages, German factories often had to use substitute materials that were inferior in quality/durability/suitability to the preferred materials. The Me 262 jet fighter's engines were an example of this. Instead of the high-temp alloys that would normally be used in jet engines, substandard steels had to be used which dramatically reduced the engines longevity. I would think that tank production had to endure the same effects.
FromMyColdDeadHand
12-25-22, 14:54
That IRish tank guy had I think the most relevant comment about the Sherman. It was the first 'global' tank that fought from the tundra in the Arctic circle to the rainforests near the equator. And maybe not the best tank in any theater, it was one of the top ones. Add in that was mass produced and easy to repair, and you have an alright tank and an awesome war machine.
Coal Dragger
12-25-22, 15:29
Not that I’m an expert in armor but here is like my opinion man:
1.) Best German tank in WWII by operational reliability, up time, combat capability:
Panzer IV, relatively capable, and not so complicated it couldn’t be maintained. Light enough to be reliably powered by available engines, and transmissions without damaging all the drive line if used hard.
2.) Best German tank in WWII on paper:
Panther. Firepower, protection, mobility. The long 75mm could penetrate more armor than the 88mm/L56 in the Tiger I, the Panther had better mobility, and the sloped armor was just as effective.
Too bad for the Germans that the engine and transmission were temperamental.
3.) Best German WWII tank most potential:
King Tiger, as stated by Averageman the KT with the 88/L71 could have been a viable MBT in the 50’s and 60’s. The turret probably could have been up-gunned to a 105mm, as it’s big enough.
Held back by inadequate power, and transmission. If the Germans had used their Kraut space Magic to develop a decent high torque turbodiesel power unit and a transmission/drive line that could take the torque, the KT would have been pretty scary. Same for the Panther.
Tiger 1’s are my favorite ww2 AFV. They were legendary for a great gun that could pierce enemy armor at 2k+ meters, had thick armor that took a beating, however they did have reliability and transport concerns. Even with their handicaps, Tiger units on the eastern front had excellent kill to loss ratios. I do get that some of that was due to superior tactics and communications between German tanks. Their notoriety on all fronts given there low production of <1400 for the Tiger I, and numbers that were actually serviceable at any given moment speaks to their effectiveness on the battlefield as both a tactile and psychological weapon. There are numerous instances of a Tiger platoon or even a single tank stopping an enemy advance cold. However I n the long run a shit load of T34 or Sherman’s is what wins.
As much as I like the Tiger 1, their drawbacks of cost, production time, reliability and transport make them not the best choice. IMO the AFV that gave the Germans the best bang for the buck was the Stug III with the long barreled 75mm. They were mechanically reliable, could penetrate any allied tank with the right ammo at a decent range, were hard to see/ hit because of the low profile and were fast and cheap to make compared to a Tiger. If the Germans could have put all of their AFV resources into the production of the Stug III or the MK IV the Allie’s would have had a much more difficult problem to contend with.
Okay, maybe someone can clear up a little confusion:
Does Panther = Panzer in German?
Why was the Panzer IV an earlier tank than the Panther? (unless Panther does not equal Panzer in German) You would think that something designated as IV would come AFTER something without a numerical model designation.
I've looked at pics and the Tiger had a more squared front end while the Panzers (Panther?) had sloping armor, but a later Tiger did indeed have sloping armor.
It's a bit confusing sorting through these Kraut tanks!
Due to wartime restrictions/shortages, German factories often had to use substitute materials that were inferior in quality/durability/suitability to the preferred materials. The Me 262 jet fighter's engines were an example of this. Instead of the high-temp alloys that would normally be used in jet engines, substandard steels had to be used which dramatically reduced the engines longevity. I would think that tank production had to endure the same effects.
This is true with the steel the Germans used for armor. Late war steel was more prone to cracking when hit with an AP round and to spalling or splintering inside the tank. That can be deadly for the crew even if the armor isn’t penetrated. This was due to losing access to mines I. The Caucus mountains for different tires of ore for the alloys used to make the armor.
Okay, maybe someone can clear up a little confusion:
Does Panther = Panzer in German?
Why was the Panzer IV an earlier tank than the Panther? (unless Panther does not equal Panzer in German) You would think that something designated as IV would come AFTER something without a numerical model designation.
I've looked at pics and the Tiger had a more squared front end while the Panzers (Panther?) had sloping armor, but a later Tiger did indeed have sloping armor.
It's a bit confusing sorting through these Kraut tanks!
Panzer = armor. A panther was a MK V, a Tiger 1 a MK VI
Overall, the Panther Mk V although I agree that the IV was the workhorse for the German army. That being said, my favorite (although technically an "assault gun") was the Sturmgeshutz III's & IV's. From what I've read & some interviews I've seen with American, British & Canadian tankers the Stug's gave them fits & the allied tankers gave them a healthy respect.
IIRC, the Stug's were built on the Panzer IV chassis giving them good reliability & armor on par with the Sherman.. Although the gun was fixed it did have a few degrees of T&E without having to move the whole vehicle. Aesthetically, I think they look the best. That's what counts, right?
Panzer = armor. A panther was a MK V, a Tiger 1 a MK VIYep, panzer started out meaning "armor", derived from the French word "pancier" which was an armored breastplate.
With the German tendency to string words together their, first tanks became Panzerkampfwagen which meant "armored fight/combat vehicle".
Normally shortened to just "Panzer" and by WW 2 it came to mean "tank".
It's not that different from us referring to units of tanks as "armor".
Note that German military vehicles also had an ordinance number preceded by SD. Kfz. ("Sonderkraftfahrzeug"- Special purpose vehicle) with number ranges designating the type of vehicle. Tanks and self propelled guns were 100-199.
So a Panther = Panzer V = Sd.Kfz. 171
Good points on panzer IV, I tend to over look panzer IV and the Germans could certainly have done themselves well by sticking to producing IVs and things based on the IV chassis. It's an unexciting tank but it checks all the boxes, great gun(most of the time), respectable armor protection, much easier to maintain and all crew members have their own hatch, making escape much quicker and easier.
Stugs were mostly built on panzer III chassis but after key factories had been bombed and Stug production interrupted. It was decided to modify the designed to me manufactured on the panzer IV chassis.
Panzer III (generally 6 road wheels per side) was technically superior chassis being sprung by torsion bars, but it's turret ring was too small to keep up with gun technology. This was a problem as the Panzer III was to be the MBT and the Panzer IV was more for direct fire support with it's short 75mm gun. As the war progressed the panzer III went from a 37mm to 50mm main gun and the final variants being build with the older short barrel 75mm guns. Panzer III was now being used as a supporting vehicle for heavy tank battalions (Tigers) preforming reconnaissance and security duties for the larger tanks.
Panzer IV chassis (8 road wheels per side) was old school tech, like the sherman using sprung bogies mounted outside the chassis. While not providing the smooth ride of the better torsion bar suspensions (all the big cat tanks and most modern tanks I believe) was much easier to maintain in the field.
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So there are never-ending arguments regarding German armor strategy. One of the views is that they should have just focused on building Panzer IVs rather than putting resources into the Panther and Tiger.
That argument usually is shot down because:
- panthers were not that much more expensive to build then panzer IVs. (Though you could argue the tiger was a really bad investment during critical wartime)
- tank crew survivability was becoming a really big deal. Towards the end of the war trained crews were in shorter supply than tanks
- Even with the upgraded gun and armor the panzer IV was outmatched by the t-34, who also upgraded their gun. And the Germans didn't have the manpower or vehicles to do what we did with the Sherman's and swarm them
So there are never-ending arguments regarding German armor strategy. One of the views is that they should have just focused on building Panzer IVs rather than putting resources into the Panther and Tiger.
That argument usually is shot down because:
- panthers were not that much more expensive to build then panzer IVs. (Though you could argue the tiger was a really bad investment during critical wartime)
- tank crew survivability was becoming a really big deal. Towards the end of the war trained crews were in shorter supply than tanks
- Even with the upgraded gun and armor the panzer IV was outmatched by the t-34, who also upgraded their gun. And the Germans didn't have the manpower or vehicles to do what we did with the Sherman's and swarm them
True, and with out air superiority the best tank really is useless.
Averageman
12-26-22, 09:51
Okay, maybe someone can clear up a little confusion:
Does Panther = Panzer in German?
Why was the Panzer IV an earlier tank than the Panther? (unless Panther does not equal Panzer in German) You would think that something designated as IV would come AFTER something without a numerical model designation.
I've looked at pics and the Tiger had a more squared front end while the Panzers (Panther?) had sloping armor, but a later Tiger did indeed have sloping armor.
It's a bit confusing sorting through these Kraut tanks!
You can thank Ferdinan Porshe for that.
He began giving tanks big cat names as he was designing what would be the Tiger.
I've looked at pics and the Tiger had a more squared front end while the Panzers (Panther?) had sloping armor, but a later Tiger did indeed have sloping armor.
The German tanks pretty much didn't have sloping armor until they encountered the t-34s and Sherman's, which did have sloping armor.
Apparently the short barrels on the III & IV could not penetrate the t-34 armor. So they fairly quickly went to the better gun.
It essentially made a projectile trap.
I always thought sloping armor was to cause the shell to deflect, but it's actually operating by making the armor effectively thicker if you look at it from the perspective of the shell's travel path.
For an extreme example of sloping armor look at a swedish S tank (SV-103).
Really had a lot of neat features, but was immediately made obsolete as soon as stabilized guns enabled "shoot while moving".
Side note: very few German planes and even less German tanks made it to the US. But in Europe you are more likely to see them in museums, and there's a big military museum out near Cambridge in the UK that has an incredible collection. And also the British war museum.
The first time I saw an ME-263 and also the comet in the flesh was at a technology museum in Vienna.
The Russian T-34 also a had a powerful and compact (for the time) aluminum V-12 diesel engine. I think most other Allied and German tanks used gasoline engines.
The Russian T-34 also a had a powerful and compact (for the time) aluminum V-12 diesel engine. I think most other Allied and German tanks used gasoline engines.
I thought the T34 was diesel. My take was Russians and Japanese tanks were diesel while Germany and most allies ran gasoline. Partly due to fuel availability/logistics of their respective militaries. Also indicative of state of light(ish) diesel engine development of the respective countries.
Was the Sherman the only radial powered of the bunch? Seems like an odd choice.
Averageman
12-26-22, 17:28
Was the Sherman the only radial powered of the bunch? Seems like an odd choice.
Yes I believe it was.
The Sherman actually had Fve different engines available: a Ford gasoline V-8, a Continental nine-cylinder radial, a GM twelve-cylinder (two in-line sixes) diesel, a Chrysler 30-cylinder (five in-line sixes) multibank, and an Ordnance Engine nine-cylinder radial diesel. Each of these powerplants produced at least 350 horsepower.
The Ford and Continental were the most common. I think the diesel was only used in the pacific by the US Marines and lend lease to USSR. The Ford was all aluminum and a popular drag race engine after the war that easily produce 1k hp when souped up. The multibank Chrysler I believe was only used in training.
crusader377
12-31-22, 00:35
Going back to the original question, the best German WW2 tank, my answered is a bit nuanced.
I think the best alround design was the Panther, however, it was let down by horrible build quality and poor reliability.
The most powerful German tank was the King Tiger, however, wars aren't decided on by one on one tank duals.
My actual vote goes to the Panzer III for two reasons. One, the Panzer III was the tank of the Blitzkreig and even though it was never the most powerful tank on the battlefield, operationally it was a very good tank in terms or reliability, mobility, good crew layout, etc...
Second, the Panzer III played a huge part in the German war effort throughout the war with its assault gun/tank destroyer derivative which was the Stug 3 which was the single most effective tank killer on the battlefield especially for its cost.
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