Sherman vs Panther

[MiloMorai]

 

 

[69th_chuter]

Cool.  If the US Army was ever interested in taking on the terrain and/or obstacles they probably would've preferred the Panther - lol.  As it is I think they'll settle for their historical 3.6/1 kill advantage over Panthers.

 

Only about 15% of enemy engagements by Shermans were with enemy armor of any sort and the Panther's problem areas (too small of a turret and a quite narrow field of view for the gunner being two) coupled with inexperienced crews prevented the Panther from being used to full advantage.

 

 

[Finkeren]

Cool. 

 

Now do:

 

"Sherman and Panther vs. 200km road march" 

 

"Sherman and Panther vs. crossing the Atlantic Ocean" 

 

"Sherman and Panther vs. replacing a faulty transmission" 

[unreasonable]

Thanks for the amusing videos. The Churchill was also good at this kind of terrain test: a wide and low design will do that.

 

I do not think that anyone in their right mind thinks that Shermans were the best tanks in any one-one tactical comparison: they were adequate, but you could make more of them and keep more of them in action than any other contemporary design. A "fast food" tank, just what was needed to win a war of attrition.  

[Yogiflight]

4 hours ago, Finkeren said:

Sherman and Panther vs. 200km road march" 

Was not necessary for the Panther, the german side didn't have enough fuel for that.

4 hours ago, Finkeren said:

Sherman and Panther vs. crossing the Atlantic Ocean" 

Wait, did the germans plan to invade the US at that time? And BTW, did the Shermans swim over the Atlantic?

4 hours ago, Finkeren said:

Sherman and Panther vs. replacing a faulty transmission" 

Not necessary for the Panther, too. Take the remaninig five liters of fuel to burn it and get another tank.

Edited September 14, 2019 by Yogiflight

[Torrens]

Cool video. What I'd really like to see is same comparison Panther vs T34 considering it had a lot of influence on Panther desing.

6 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

Was not necessary for the Panther, the german side didn't have enough fuel for that.

Wait, did the germans plan to invade the US at that time? And BTW, did the Shermans swim over the Atlantic?

Not necessary for the Panther, too. Take the remaninig five liters of fuel to burn it and get another tank.

No Sherman didn't swim across Atlantic Ocean. It was shipped in transport ships while weighing only 33.000 kg. When you need countless thousands of tanks across the world with having to lift them on ships with cranes, ship them overseas and take them off the ships again with cranes that have load limits..... do you want the 45.000 kg Panther tank that has better cross-country mobility but still breaks down long term or do you want a Sherman that weighs over 10.000kg less, is smaller letting more tanks be fitted inside a ship, is designed for crane lifting, has endless spare parts and doesn't break down? Sherman is the only WW2 tank that served in every major theater for these reasons.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Torrens

[Yogiflight]

My post was of course not meant too seriously.

But as you are addressing it, the Panther was never meant to be shipped. It can hardly be a disadvantage, that it is worse in something, that is not relevant for it. 

But of course Finkeren's points about high fuel consumption and much more technical troubles are real disadvantages, that counted in combat.

[MiloMorai]

[6./ZG26_Custard]

It's all in the numbers

 

Panther's built:  6,000 (approx)

Sherman's built:  49,234 

[Yogiflight]

2 hours ago, 6./ZG26_Custard said:

It's all in the numbers

 

Panther's built:  6,000 (approx)

Sherman's built:  49,234 

No, it is only half of the truth. Germany would not have had the resources for 49,234 tanks of whatever type, nor the tankists to use them. So they had to try to build some kind of Ubertanks, to get more effectivity of less tanks.

But as Finkeren already pointed out, they had their issues.

[6./ZG26_Custard]

41 minutes ago, Yogiflight said:

So they had to try to build some kind of Ubertanks, to get more effectivity of less tanks.

It was Hitlers obsession with larger and larger Tanks that was also a huge factor, particularly when you take into consideration that  8 Allied Sherman tanks cost as much as one King Tiger tank and it took approx 300,000 estimate man hours to build 1 tank. What a waste of precious resources and man hours.

[Retnek]

Someone in Youtube pointed on the source, Swedish testing in the late 40s:

 

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x31qqzl

 

 

[Finkeren]

3 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

No, it is only half of the truth. Germany would not have had the resources for 49,234 tanks of whatever type, nor the tankists to use them. 

 

Yes, that is of course the central issue: Germany had no business fighting the war that it had started. Geopolitically they simply weren't up to the task, which in turn led them to make things like the 3rd gen. tanks in a desperate attempt to stay compettitive. Some of these tanks were great designs and powerful combat weapons, when finally deployed, but they were invariably hugely expensive and a logistical nightmare and arguably not worth the effort. 

[SCG_SchleiferGER]

What exactly on the Panther was third gen? Examples?

 

Desperate attempt to stay competitive? Come one, it is normal to try to stay ahead of the enemies capabilities.

 

Panther wasn't even that much more expensive compared to Panzer IV.

 

Look, if you judge a tank of a mainly landbased military with no offshore colonies based on its ability to be transported around the world, you are doing something wrong.

 

Panther, like any wartime vehicle was a compromise. The final drives are a great example of that. They new the final drives were not good enough, but the machines for producing better parts where already at their capacity limit.

Same with the gearboxes. Tiger gearboxes were semiautomatic while Panther's where normal hand shifters, even if they knew that not having to concenrate on shifting would get the drivers mind free for more important tasks. Like positioning the tank.

 

Who thinks the Panther is a uber tank is simply wrong. Who thinks the Panther is a worthless piece of scrap metal is wrong, too.

 

[Finkeren]

18 hours ago, SCG_SchleiferGER said:

What exactly on the Panther was third gen? Examples?

 

The German tanks designed after PzKw IV is often refered to as 3rd generation of Nazi German tank production, characterized by a shift towards extremely heavy armor and armament, more so than other nations. 

 

18 hours ago, SCG_SchleiferGER said:

Desperate attempt to stay competitive? Come one, it is normal to try to stay ahead of the enemies capabilities.

 

Obviously, but the way the new German designs were rushed into action and the emphasis on building ever bigger, more hard-hitting tanks underlines the German desperation. They knew they were losing the numbers game and tried to compensate by making their tanks count for more but in turn ended up making their logistical situation even worse than it currently was. Those are not the actions of a military that's in control of the situation. 

 

18 hours ago, SCG_SchleiferGER said:

Panther wasn't even that much more expensive compared to Panzer IV. 

 

True, but when you are behind in the numbers game, getting out-produced badly by your enemies and while you are (finally) getting your economy on a war-footing, your tanks are really supposed to become faster and cheaper to produce, not slower and more expensive - however slightly. 

 

18 hours ago, SCG_SchleiferGER said:

Look, if you judge a tank of a mainly landbased military with no offshore colonies based on its ability to be transported around the world, you are doing something wrong.

 

 

The example of the Panther's lack of transportability by ship was just to illustrate, that such a design would have been the wrong tank for the kind of war th US was fighting, and therefore any discussion of the Panther being superior to the Sherman is fruitless without taking that into account. 

 

18 hours ago, SCG_SchleiferGER said:

Panther, like any wartime vehicle was a compromise. The final drives are a great example of that. They new the final drives were not good enough, but the machines for producing better parts where already at their capacity limit.

Same with the gearboxes. Tiger gearboxes were semiautomatic while Panther's where normal hand shifters, even if they knew that not having to concenrate on shifting would get the drivers mind free for more important tasks. Like positioning the tank.

 

Who thinks the Panther is a uber tank is simply wrong. Who thinks the Panther is a worthless piece of scrap metal is wrong, too.

 

 

Agree. 

Edited September 17, 2019 by Finkeren

[TacticalOni]

On 9/14/2019 at 8:40 AM, chuter said:

the Panther's problem areas (too small of a turret and a quite narrow field of view for the gunner being two)

So I can address this firsthand, as I work at a museum that has a Panther Ausf A. that I climb in often (often enough, I should say) 
The Panther is comparable in size to the M60 Main Battle Tank, yet the turret is twice as small for a gun roughly the same size as the 105mm M68. The Turret ring is the real killer here. You have to fit 2 men at their widest part and one whole man minus head and feet(*) in a space no larger than 4 feet (slightly more than 1m) across. And while the quality of optics in the Panther are fantastic, their application is garbage. The commander gets the most out of everyone and he can ride in an open-protected position, but there's much blocking his view like the ring skate for the machine gun and the blocks where the periscopes protrude from the cupola. The periscopes themselves are small and don't cover a lot of ground. You're blind if anything is closer to you than 20-30' at ground level in front of you. There are also fairly large gaps in the coverage these periscopes in the cupola provide as well. The Gunner gets shafted, while there is a variable zoom setting on the telescopic sight, the gun blocks your right-side fov completely. The commander pretty much has to scan for targets since you're too busy looking at your muzzle brake to do much else. The loader...that poor man, gets one periscope, and its fixed in an asinine position looking slightly to the right of the turret. Spending a little time implementing a rotating peri mount for the loader and a unity periscope for the gunner would increase the SA of the crew by threefold. 
Honestly what was Germany thinking when they designed the thing? Turret rings too small, optics are poorly placed and barely useful...

*The turret has to accomodate 
-The Commander's body, whose head is in the cupola and feet are below the turret ring, so the ring has to only accomodate the lower calves/ankles of the commander. 
-The Gunner's upper torso
-the loader's entire torso if not more depending on where he's accessing ammunition from

[SCG_judgedeath3]

My theory based on documents and books in the subject is:
1: Due to they made it a contest to make a new medium tnak to counter the T-34, MAN and Henschel and the other contractors put together designs in a very short time and produce prototypes to reach a deadline that was set not too far awya in the future, Hitlers birthday if I recall right, so they didnt have the time to perfect the designs. And once MAN got the contract it was again stressed out to reach the front as soon as possible, it came to be the Kursk battle. All these factors made the tank to have these flaws that you mention and also parts that didnt work too well. Had they used the same idea as in Panzer III and IV then the ergonomics and quality be top notch. Although it was still the best tank in ww2 in 1 vs 1 engagement and on paper. Became the blueprint of future tanks.

2: IT was made for massproduction and they made decision to speed up production so they accepted those flaws and parts that wasnt up for the task so they could reach Speers production numbers. To fix those problems would mean a halt in the production and delays. In a time where germany cant afford it.

3: War situation and lack of materials and man power and allied bombing was also a factor in why these decisions were made.

[Yogiflight]

Increase of the diameter of the turret ring means decrease of stability of the hull, larger turret, more weight of the turret, larger target.

And don't forget, german soldiers at that time were pretty slim, compared to today. The gunner doesn't need very much space for doing his job, says someone, who was educated as gunner and shooting teacher in the german IFV SPz Marder. You do not move very much as gunner. The only one, who really needs space is the loader. A rotating peri mount for the loader? Are there tanks, that have that? A rotating periscope for the commander, like modern tanks have it, makes absolutely sense.

The question is, what were the experiences, the tank crews back then did make with the Panther. Only they could really tell, if it was satisfying or not.

 

[TacticalOni]

1 hour ago, Yogiflight said:

A rotating peri mount for the loader?

On an M4A3 the only crewman that doesn't get a rotating periscope is the gunner. Though since the peri is attached to the turret, you can just rotate the turret...semantics.  Continuing with the M4, the Commmander gets a vision cupola with much larger vision blocks for good visibility, and a rotating periscope in the hatch, with a nice azimuth indicator, and an override handle to slew the gun onto target if the gunner's looking elsewhere. The Sherman maybe wasn't the best tank but it had a lot of outstanding features. 

 

Quote

Increase of the diameter of the turret ring means decrease of stability of the hull, larger turret, more weight of the turret, larger target.

Aye, you're right there. The Panther was limited in a number of ways, widening the turret ring would put the turret basket over the track sponsons and then you have a different problem there. The Panther's already a big enough target, I don't see an issue with making the turret larger, but then again I'm a large guy so as long as it worked well enough for the smaller crews my complaint is a little out of place.  

[SCG_SchleiferGER]

15 hours ago, Sledgehammer427 said:

The loader...that poor man, gets one periscope, and its fixed in an asinine position looking slightly to the right of the turret. Spending a little time implementing a rotating peri mount for the loader and a unity periscope for the gunner would increase the SA of the crew by threefold. 
 

You know what you need to build a rotating periscope?

Ballbearings. Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid sends its regards.

 

Btw the Germans seem to have dropped the idea of rotating periscopes with the early iterations of Panzer III and IV. I am curious why they did that.

The gunner problem could have been fixed with the Ausf  F,  which hat the gunner optic mounted on the roof. 

 

13 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

Increase of the diameter of the turret ring means decrease of stability of the hull, larger turret, more weight of the turret, larger target.

If you increase the turret ring to reach into the sponson area, you loose ammo storage space.That could have been the killer argument.

 

14 hours ago, judgedeath3 said:

My theory based on documents and books in the subject is:
1: Due to they made it a contest to make a new medium tnak to counter the T-34, MAN and Henschel and the other contractors put together designs in a very short time and produce prototypes to reach a deadline that was set not too far awya in the future, Hitlers birthday if I recall right, so they didnt have the time to perfect the designs. And once MAN got the contract it was again stressed out to reach the front as soon as possible, it came to be the Kursk battle. All these factors made the tank to have these flaws that you mention and also parts that didnt work too well. Had they used the same idea as in Panzer III and IV then the ergonomics and quality be top notch. Although it was still the best tank in ww2 in 1 vs 1 engagement and on paper. Became the blueprint of future tanks.

 

Panther was developed in almost under a year. Compare that to the project that lead to the Tiger, which started in 1938, or the Panzer IV. The amount of changes/bugfixes in the early versions is astonishing...

The next development step of the Panzer III (a proofen and good design) with torsion bars and interleaved roadwheels was thrown under the bus for the Panther project . 

But what could they do. Panzer III could not take a 75mm gun without a major redesign. If yo have to completely redesign a tank you may be better of with starting from scratch. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2019 by SCG_SchleiferGER

[Yogiflight]

1 hour ago, SCG_SchleiferGER said:

If you increase the turret ring to reach into the sponson area, you loose ammo storage space.That could have been the killer argument

Yep, there are plenty of possible reasons, I just wanted to list the few, that came to my mind immediately.

12 hours ago, Sledgehammer427 said:

Aye, you're right there. The Panther was limited in a number of ways, widening the turret ring would put the turret basket over the track sponsons and then you have a different problem there. The Panther's already a big enough target, I don't see an issue with making the turret larger, but then again I'm a large guy so as long as it worked well enough for the smaller crews my complaint is a little out of place

We sometimes are a little corrupted by what we are used to. I saw films about the Leopard tanks, with crew members stating, that there is a bit few room in the turret. As someone, who was trained on the german IFV SPz Marder, I can say, the turret of the Leopard tanks is a living room compared to the Marder turret.

[NateLawrence]

The Sherman shown is a Sherman VC (Firefly) that Sweden acquired after the war. It's important to remember that the M4A4 (Sherman V) had the weakest engine of the Sherman family and the longest track length, and thus the poorest automotive performance. Had the tank been an M4A3, especially with the HVSS suspension, the results would likely have been different.

[manintan2016]

1. This says it all. By the men who knew better than anyone else, the ones that where there.

 

[Lypa]

Some of the myths perpetuated in the video posted above are debunked by Chieftain:
 

 

[SCG_judgedeath3]

On 10/15/2019 at 9:09 AM, Lypa said:

Some of the myths perpetuated in the video posted above are debunked by Chieftain:

He is correct and like other historians and even generals from that time: soldiers are soldiers, they dont know much other than trying to survive and can only tell their picture of events, in this case the veteran speaking about how sherman is a deathtrap worked as a repairer so his job was to see taken out shermans never the losses of the enemies so to him it seemed like the sherman was a deathtrap. But in reality nope, it was a decent tank and better survival rate for the crew than all other allied tanks.

[Waelse]

On 9/16/2019 at 3:20 PM, Finkeren said:

 

Yes, that is of course the central issue: Germany had no business fighting the war that it had started. Geopolitically they simply weren't up to the task, which in turn led them to make things like the 3rd gen. tanks in a desperate attempt to stay compettitive. Some of these tanks were great designs and powerful combat weapons, when finally deployed, but they were invariably hugely expensive and a logistical nightmare and arguably not worth the effort. 

Well, Germany didn't start THE war. They start a local war with Poland only.

[6FG_Big_Al]

2 minutes ago, Waelse said:

Well, Germany didn't start THE war. They start a local war with Poland only.

That's not correct in itself. Germany may have planned it as a local war, but it became a European war after the ultimatum that England and France had set had expired.  Moreover, Germany was the undoubted aggressor of the whole and could have imagined that the war (similar to 1914) would spread much faster.

 

And as others have already pointed out here, the German and Allied tanks are based on different philosophies. Altogether I'm curious about the realization of 1C's Panther (after all, it shouldn't burn by itself). I'd rather compare the Sherman with the Panzer IV and the Sherman doesn't come off so badly.

 

[Cybermat47]

27 minutes ago, Waelse said:

Well, Germany didn't start THE war. They start a local war with Poland only.

And then they escalated it into THE war by refusing to stop their genocidal local war.

[Waelse]

8 minutes ago, [Pb]Cybermat47 said:

And then they escalated it into THE war by refusing to stop their genocidal local war.

1939, Poland, genocide?

[Cybermat47]

47 minutes ago, Waelse said:

1939, Poland, genocide?

 

Spoiler

 

Invasion of Poland starts at 11:26, the genocide of the Jews and enslavement of the Poles is covered at 12:04.

Edited October 23, 2019 by [Pb]Cybermat47

[BlackSix]

Please STOP political discussion here!