German armored vehicles of the Second World War traditionally receive mixed ratings at best. Today they like to point out that German technology was in reality bad, extremely unreliable and, on the whole, inferior to Soviet and allied ones. How it happened that with such poor weapons the war lasted five long years without interruption remains a mystery. Was the main cat of the Reich really lame in both legs?
"Panther" should be the new main tank in Germany with the release of at least 600 units per month. The deployment of the Panzerkampfwagen V Panther series production took place in the spring-summer of 1943, when the Reich officially entered a state of “total war”. However, despite the ambitious plans of the command, there could be no talk of any 600 panthers per month. The tank turned out to be too difficult to manufacture to be produced in such quantities. In total, the Germans will release about 6 thousand Panthers by the end of the war, or about 330 vehicles per month. 136 enterprises of occupied Europe and Germany itself will participate in the production of these tanks.
Many people like to point out that the Panthers had serious problems with the chassis. This is indeed the case. Most of the flaws here stemmed from the "checkerboard" knot design. The Panthers had big problems with snow and mud, which could bring the car to a complete stop in unfortunate circumstances. The transmission of the tank did not always show itself from the best side. True, this can be shown to many other tanks of the Second World War, including allied and domestic ones.
It is important to understand the main thing: most of the problems of the German "Panther" directly grew from three main points. The first moment: qualification of personnel, namely crews. By 1943, the Wehrmacht was already, to put it mildly, not what it was in 1941. The Eastern Front, like a meat grinder, grinded a significant part of the most qualified and experienced tankers. the Wehrmacht, behind which were not only military schools, but also the successful combat experience of the French and Polish campaigns. The number of hastily trained tankers in the Wehrmacht units grew steadily. This naturally led to additional non-combat (operational) losses of tanks.
Second moment: Allied air raids. A moment that many people underestimate in history. However, the allied aviation raids on German enterprises really made a significant contribution to the overall victory. The destruction of the industrial complex and the concomitant murder of qualified labor personnel led to a constant reduction in the quality of products. Often it was necessary to look for less technologically advanced and cheap substitutes for complex, but much more reliable components. And yes, the war is cruel - even those in the deep rear perish in it.
The third moment: lack of resources. Even before the outbreak of World War II, the Reich existed in an acute shortage of a number of important resources. In part, the deficit was met by searching for all sorts of substitutes (mainly in the chemical industry). In 1941, the Germans relied precisely on the quick defeat of the USSR, since this was the only chance to secure a stable flow of raw materials. Most of all the Germans were interested in the Urals, Ukraine, the Caucasus. Already during the occupation of part of the Soviet lands, the Nazis began to pump out the resources they needed for themselves. However, after the loss of deposits (for example, the Nikopol manganese basin in Ukraine) with production of the same "Panthers" began additional problems, began to suffer seriously, including the quality of the armor.
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The Panther was more than a successful vehicle for the army and in the conditions in which it was created. Subsequently, and in many respects, it was the concept of this German medium tank that inspired the idea of a modern universal tank. Those who have had a chance to work with their hands with the "Panther" in our time, for example, reenactors of equipment from Kubinka, tend to consider this German tank one of the best tanks of the Second World War. History does not have a subjunctive mood, and therefore it remains only to be glad for what the Germans did most of their tanks precisely in war conditions, and not in a calm peace time.
If you want to know even more interesting things about armored vehicles, then you should read about four-track predator: how the USA tried to build their own "tank hunter".
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/170421/58639/
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