INFO ABOUT PANZERKAMPFWAGEN
Pz. I. The Pz. I was a light tank intended as a training vehicle
for the new panzer divisions until
more powerful Pz. II, III, and IV tanks could be put into service.
It went into production in 1934. It
was lightly armed, with two 7.92-millimetre machine guns mounted
on its turret and was likewise
lightly protected by armour only 15 millimetres thick. The tank
weighed 5.4 tons, had a top road
speed of 24 miles (39 kilometres) per hour, and was manned by
a crew of two. The Pz. I first saw
combat in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), and an improved version,
the IB, was used in large
numbers by the German army in the invasions of Poland (1939)
and France (1940). The lightly
armed and armoured IB performed adequately in these campaigns
because it was used in massed
formations and because opposing forces made poor use of antitank
weapons. By the time
Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the IB's vulnerability
to light artillery and heavier
enemy tanks had rendered it obsolete for any role except reconnaissance.
About 2,000 Pz. IBs
were built, of which about 1,450 fought in the campaign against
France in 1940.
Pz. II. The Pz. II was larger and more heavily armed and armoured
than the Pz. I, but it was still a
light tank. It was nevertheless the mainstay of the panzer divisions
in the first two years of the war,
owing to delays encountered in building the more powerful Pz.
III and IV. The Pz. II went into full
production in 1937. It carried a 20-millimetre gun and one machine
gun and was protected by
armour with a maximum thickness of 30 millimetres. The tank weighed
10 tons, had a top road
speed of 25 miles per hour, and was manned by a crew of three.
The German army used about
1,000 Pz. IIs in each of the invasions of Poland, France, and
the Soviet Union. By early 1942,
however, the Pz. II was clearly outgunned by Soviet and British
tanks armed with 50- or
75-millimetre weapons. To remedy this, the IIF version of the
tank was equipped with a larger gun
and thicker armour, but its combat performance in Russia and
North Africa was disappointing,
partly because its six-cylinder engine could not cope with the
tank's increased weight. With its
design limits reached, production of the Pz. II was discontinued
at the end of 1942. More than
3,500 Pz. IIs were manufactured, with the later models specifically
designed for use as
reconnaissance vehicles.
Pz. III. The first medium tank developed by Nazi Germany was the
Pz. III, which did not enter
active service in large numbers until 1939. The Pz. III was initially
armed with a 37-millimetre
antitank gun and two machine guns. It weighed about 20 tons,
had a top road speed of 25 miles per
hour, and carried a crew of five. About 100 Pz. IIIs fought in
the Polish campaign and about 350 in
the invasion of France. The need for greater firepower and more
protection was apparent by 1941,
so newer versions were given a 50-millimetre gun and fitted with
armour 30-50 millimetres thick.
The Pz. III could accommodate these improvements because it had
been designed with a larger
turret and a 12-cylinder, 300-horsepower engine. The 1,500 Pz.
IIIs that took part in the invasion of
the Soviet Union in 1941 outfought most Soviet tanks but were
in turn completely outclassed by the
new Soviet T-34, which had a lethal 76.2-millimetre gun, sloping
armour, and excellent speed and
mobility. Even Pz. IIIs fitted with a high-velocity 50-millimetre
gun and protected by armour 50-70
millimetres thick could not cope with the T-34, so the tanks
were taken out of service on the
Eastern Front, though they continued to fight in the Mediterranean
theatre into 1943. By the time
production was halted early that year, about 5,660 Pz. IIIs had
been built.
Pz. IV. Though originally intended as an infantry-support tank,
the Pz. IV (along with the Pz. V
Panther; see below) formed the backbone of Germany's panzer divisions
from 1943 to the war's
end. The tank had the same engine and general appearance as the
Pz. III, but the Pz. IV had a
larger turret and gun, thicker frontal armour, and better cross-country
mobility.
It mounted a 75-millimetre gun and two machine guns and was protected
by armour ranging in
thickness from 30 to 80 millimetres. It weighed 25 tons, had
a top road speed of 25 miles per hour,
and carried a crew of five. The first Pz. IVs went into active
service in 1939 with a short-barreled
gun and were extremely successful until confronted by Soviet
T-34 tanks in late 1941. To cope
with this threat, the Pz. IV was given thicker armour and refitted
with a long-barreled,
high-velocity gun that could better penetrate the T-34's armour.
The improved Pz. IV could engage
the T-34 on nearly equal terms and was superior to the U.S. Sherman
tank in many respects. The
Pz. IV was the only tank made by Germany throughout the course
of the war, from 1939 to 1945.
More than 8,000 Pz. IVs were built, making it the most prolific
of all German tanks. Its
inexpensive, mass-produced chassis, like those of its three predecessors,
was used as a platform
for various types of antitank, assault, and self-propelled guns
and also functioned as an armoured
personnel carrier.
Pz. V Panther. Germany had experimented with heavy tanks as early
as 1935, but these efforts
acquired a new urgency after German medium tanks encountered
Soviet T-34s in late 1941. A
crash program was undertaken to design a tank that would incorporate
the advanced features of
the T-34, and the result was the Pz. V, or Panther, which entered
production in November 1942
and active service soon afterward. With the possible exception
of the T-34, the Panther was
probably the finest tank built by any country during the war.
At 45 tons it was a heavy vehicle, but
a 12-cylinder, 700-horsepower engine enabled it to reach a top
road speed of 28 miles per hour,
and an excellent suspension system gave it unusually good cross-country
mobility for a German
tank. Its long-barreled, high-velocity 75-millimetre gun had
good range and penetrating power
against most enemy tanks, and the Panther's armour, 80 millimetres
thick at the front and 40-45
millimetres on the sides and rear, was sloped so that shells
would ricochet off it.
The Panther's combat debut in the Battle of Kursk (July 1943)
was not auspicious: transmission,
suspension, and cooling-system problems brought most of the tanks
to a halt before they could
even reach the battle zone. Once these defects were resolved,
however, Panthers operated with
great success on both the Eastern and Western fronts. They were
especially effective against
American Sherman tanks and British Cromwell tanks in northern
France during the Normandy
campaign, though they remained vulnerable to attack by Allied
aircraft. More than 5,000 Panthers
were built during the war.
Pz. VI Tiger. The last and largest tank used by Germany in the
war was the Pz. VI, or Tiger.
Like the Panther, the Tiger was hurriedly developed in response
to the Soviet T-34. It went into
production in August 1942 and, like the Panther, first entered
combat in large numbers at Kursk.
The Tiger emphasized to an extreme the German preference for
firepower and survivability at the
expense of speed, agility, range, and reliability. Its long-barreled,
high-velocity 88-millimetre gun,
adapted from the Germans' formidable antiaircraft (Flak) and
antitank (Pak) guns, could penetrate
even the most heavily armoured Soviet tanks at extremely long
range.
The Tiger's own frontal armour, 100 millimetres thick, was proof
against almost any antitank gun,
and the side and rear armour were 60-80 millimetres thick. The
tank's big gun and heavy armour
seriously compromised its mobility, however. The early Tigers
weighed about 55 tons, and the
Tiger II model introduced in 1944 weighed 70 tons, making it
the heaviest tank of the war. The
Tiger had a top road speed of only 24 miles per hour, and it
could travel only about 12 miles per
hour cross-country. Whereas the Panther had a range of 60 to
120 miles, the Tiger needed
refueling after only 45 to 70 miles' travel, and it was prone
to breakdowns and was difficult to
maintain.
The Tiger tank was thus best used in a defensive role, where speed
and agility were not decisive
factors. Lightly armoured Sherman tanks suffered terrible losses
against Tigers in the Normandy
campaign, but the Allies quickly learned to capitalize on their
superior numbers and agility in
successful attacks on Tigers from the side and rear. Because
Tiger tanks were difficult to
manufacture, only about 1,340 had been built when Germany ceased
production of them in August
1944.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. The development and use of German tanks are studied
in F.M. von Senger
und Etterlin, German Tanks of World War II (1969, reissued 1974;
originally published in German,
3rd ed., 1968); George Forty, German Tanks of World War II in
Action (1987); and Peter
Chamberlain and Hilary L. Doyle, Encyclopedia of German Tanks
of World War Two, rev. ed.
(1993).
this text is copy from brtannica online:
PICTURES FROM MY PICTURE GALLERY
Panzerkamfwagen
I ausf A (Sd.Kfz.101)
Panzerbefehlswagen
ausf PzKpfw.I Ausf. B
Panzerkamfwagen
II ausf A (Sd.Kfz.121)
Panzerkamfwagen
II ausf C (Sd.Kfz.121)
Panzerspahwagen
II Ausf L Luchs - Sd.Kfz.123
Panzerkamfwagen
II ausf F (Sd.Kfz.121)
Panzerkamfwagen
III ausf A (Sd.Kfz.141)
Panzerkamfwagen
III ausf F (Sd.Kfz.141)
Panzerkamfwagen
III ausf G (Sd.Kfz.141)
Panzerkamfwagen
III ausf H (Sd.Kfz.141)
Panzerkamfwagen
III ausf J (Sd.Kfz.141/1)
Panzerkamfwagen
III ausf N (Sd.Kfz.141/2)
Panzerkamfwagen
IV ausf A (Sd.Kfz.161)
Panzerkamfwagen
IV ausf E (Sd.Kfz.161)
Panzerkamfwagen
IV ausf D (Sd.Kfz.161)
Panzerkamfwagen
IV ausf H (Sd.Kfz.161/2)
Panzerkamfwagen
IV ausf F1 (Sd.Kfz.161)
Panzerkamfwagen
IV ausf F2 (Sd.Kfz.161)
Jagdpanzer
IV Ausf. F (Sd.Kfz.162)
Panzerkamfwagen
V (panther) (Sd.Kfz.171)
Panzerkamfwagen
V (bergs panther) (Sd.Kfz.179)
Panzerkamfwagen
V (jagdpanther) (Sd.Kfz.173)
Panzerkamfwagen
VI (tiger) (Sd.Kfz.181)
Panzerkamfwagen
VI (jagdtiger) (Sd.Kfz.186)
Panzerkamfwagen
VI (tiger II) (Sd.Kfz.182)
Panzerkamfwagen
38 (t) (hetzer)
Panzerkamfwagen
38 (t) (skoda)
