Educate Me on the Panzer V

>>1418907
It was a pretty good tank in of itself. People often claim that it was over engineered but a lot of this was due to the Panthers relative age during the war. On later models after Kursk more technical problems were eventually ironed out. The Panther was postponed since Hitler demanded major modifications such as more armor. This delayed the Panther and if it wasn't then it would seen action earlier in the war probably have been more effective.

>>1418927
Which variant was the best, for it's usage in the war?

>Hans?
>What fritz?
>Why is there no reverse gear?
>Because the engineers decided that there will be no reverse gear on this tank.
>Oh, I see

PzV in a nutshell

>>1418944
I'm tempted to say the Ausf. G variant. It was a later war variant so it didn't suffer the same issues as earlier versions such as the Ausf. D and it was widely produced with several thousand being made.

>>1418964
In comparison to the Panzerkampfwagen IV and its variants, would one say that the Panzerkampfwagen V was an effective replacement or was it merely a farce and a pathetic one at that?

>>1418959
But there is a reverse gear. One.

>>1418978
It was expensive but they didn't have the crews for mass production of IVs either.

>>1418978
It might depend on how you look at it. 6,000 Panther's were produced as opposed to 8,000 Panzer IV's which could be considered quite a feat considering the former entered production in 1943. Then there's judging which one was actually superior and more practical. The Panther did have heavier sloped armor and a powerful gun but it weighed almost twice as much as the Panzer IV which still had adequate protection and firepower by 1944. I'm somewhat of a Wehraboo but I'm trying to look at this from an objective point of view. Overall I would say the Panther was a very capable that could serve the Wehrmacht's purposes when it was designed but it was still flawed, flaws that might've been avoided if Hitler didn't put quotas on the Panther's design but then a smaller and more lightly armored panther might've performed worse then the one we know. You may want to take this to >>>/k/

>>1419006
>>1419003
Since we are speaking on the subject of the Panzer V's effectiveness overall - seeing as to how well certain performances were given, would the theoretical Panzerkampfwagen V II have made a major step forward for the Wehrmacht, or was it not even a step at all?

Somewhat related to panzers and such:

I sometimes hear or read that Germans never adopted the factory production line, and instead continued to make war machines such as tanks with the tradtitional craftsman method. While I can see how this could be somewhat beneficial in the sense that each machine would go perfectly together under the finesse of a craftsman, wouldn't the German dire need of war machines outweigh this craftsman method and rather enjoy an assembly line style factory production instead? Why wasn't this obvious?

I'm making this statement/question based on next to no knowledge on this specific topic, if someone could clear this up for me I would greatly appreciate them.

>>1419018
Because their factories kept getting bombed, unlike you know, those American factories that never got attacked.

>>1419018
I think I remember hearing somewhere that manufacturing guns in Germany often required an Artisans touch to finish it. I know that later in the war, once Albert Speer became Minister of War production in 1943, there were attempts to simplify tanks and standardize different parts. The Panzer V Ausf G. and post Ausf H. Panzer IV's were simplified in design to make for easier manufacturing.

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The Panzerkampfwagen series was created with the ideal weapons touches and craftsmanship which made it effective in combat. However, compared to the standardized parts of an M4 Sherman or T-34, the Panzers experienced massive challenges amidst getting damaged, and based on the number of variants - required special parts. This was one of the many reasons why the Germans were held back on a lot of their fronts, including Kursk and Normandy. The designs of both the tanks and the weapons they were using were too complicated to repair with a simple replacement and often times required special reparations and transportation of supplies across the European continent to achieve an effective repair.

>>1419028

They weren't getting significantly bombed earlier (1939-1943?), so why didn't they make assembly lines then?

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Excellent in a tank duel, with excellent off road capability as well. Had a shit HE shell because of the extreme velocity of it's gun. Other countries had this problem as well like the American 76mm for example.

File: atleastIhaveaninterestintanks.jpg (195KB, 1236x831px) Image search: [Google]

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>>1419006
Most Panzer IVs were built from 43 onwards anyways. It seems that both tanks could preform some roles better than the other. Which is why they kept the IVs in production til the end of the war.