The Panzerkampfwagen V Panther was a late-war German “medium” tank.
The panther was developed as a response to the Soviet T-34 and KV-1,
which took the German Army by surprise during Operation Barbarossa in 1941.
Existing models of the Panzer 3 and the Panzer 4 were unable to compete head-to-head with these new soviet tanks,
and the panther was rushed into development.
The project initially specified a vehicle around 20 tons.
This was soon increased to 30 tons, then 35 tons.
The panther would end up weighing an absolutely monstrous 45 tons,
more than the British Churchill or even the American M26 Pershing.
To the Germans, though, it was still a medium tank.
Despite this weight, the panther was no slouch, and could hit a top speed of 34mph thanks to its V12 engine.
The tank boasted a 75mm KwK 42 high velocity gun,
which could easily penetrate anything it came up against, T-34s included.
The front armour of the vehicle was strong, with 80mm of armour sloped at 55 degrees,
but the side armour and rear armour were considerably weaker, and enemy tank crews would try their best to exploit this weakness whenever possible.
The first Panther tanks rolled off the production lines in January 1943.
The Panther would be built in 4 variants over the course of the war, with 3 of these variants seeing combat.
The first variant was not Panther A as you might expect, but was the Panther D.
Panther went from concept to production in under a year,
which is very impressive and a feat that no other tank design in the war could match.
This was for good reason.
The Panther D suffered a lot from design issues that really should’ve been spotted and fixed during the testing phase of the vehicle,
which the Panther essentially never had.
The most serious of these issues were mechanical
the engine had a very nasty tendency to catch fire,
with vehicles being completely destroyed before even reaching the front lines.
Another issue was the unreliability of the final drives,
an issue that would plague the panther for the rest of its service life.
The final drive was the connection between the transmission and the drive wheel,
and the final drive of Panther reportedly had a service life of only 160km before the entire system needed replaced.
When the vehicle began mass production in January 1943,
the Panther D was simply too unreliable, even by the German’s standards.
The issue of new tanks ceased in April, and the tanks were recalled for emergency modifications.
The vehicles were put back into service the following month, in time for the huge German Offensive into the Kursk Salient,
Operation Citadel, which had been delayed multiple times to ensure the Panther would be able to take part.
The Panther D equipped the 51st and 52nd Panzer Detachments,
and by the start of Citadel they had 96 Panthers each, 192 vehicles total.
15 tanks broke down before reaching the front.
After 3 days of combat there were a total of 40 Panthers in front line service,
and after 6 days this number was reduced to just 10.
Only 23 of the 182 missing vehicles had been destroyed by the soviets.
157 were under repair and 2 had been destroyed by their own engines catching fire.
Things were not going well.
Despite the host of mechanical issues with the Panther D,
during the Battle of Kursk the tank did showcase it’s lethal gun and strong frontal protection,
proving almost impenetrable to soviet guns at long ranges
and boasting a high kill ratio overall.
With some changes and upgrades, the Germans were confident it could still be a great vehicle
– and a new, improved model was on the horizon –
the Panther Ausfuerung A.
The Panther A was an attempt to address some of the reliability issues that had plagued the D models since their introduction.
Changes included stronger running gear, a reinforced drivetrain, added wheel bolts and better cooling for the engine.
The A model had a slightly wider turret mantlet,
The loader got a new periscope on the roof of the turret,
and the single speed power traverse was replaced with a variable speed system.
A new cupola was introduced as well.
This dome shaped design gradually replaced the cylindrical drum design of the D models,
and could mount a machine gun for air defence.
The A models saw the panther finally get a dedicated ball mounted hull machine gun.
In the D model vehicles there is simply a vertical letter box like opening that the radio operator could fire a machine gun out of if he so pleased.
This was done away with and replaced with a large domed mount, typical for vehicles of the time.
It’s important to note that none of these changes happened at the same time.
The production lines were very gradually changed from the Model D to the Model A,
with many early Model A tanks looking identical to late Model D vehicles.
Some Panther D hulls received the new cupola or even the entire turret,
so confidently identifying these vehicles can be a pain unless you can find the chassis number.
Overall, the Panther A was a relatively minor upgrade to the vehicle,
but it helped shore up some of the deficiencies of the earlier model.
However the german engineers were planning a much bigger upgrade as early as 1942.
The Panther II was going to completely replace the Panther in German service.
At this point in the war German factories were struggling to keep up with demand,
so standarising production lines was a huge priority.
The Panther II was to use the same suspension, road wheels, main drive and steering units of the Tiger II,
and the new hull was going to be much better armoured than the original Panther.
The Panther II never progressed passed the prototyping stage,
and the only finished hull is currently at a museum in Fort Knox.
The Germans instead opted to use the lessons they had learned during the Panther II project to create a new and improved panther variant.
The Panther G.
The Panther G used the same turret as the Panther A models,
but what set it apart is the hull.
On the D and A models the side armour was 40mm thick and angled at 40 degrees.
This was revised for the Panther G. The new side armour was sloped at 29 degrees, but thickened to 50mm.
This side armour sloped downwards towards the back of the track, which is an easy way to identify a G model vehicle.
Thickening the armour did add some weight to the vehicle,
and the designers needed to lose the weight somewhere else.
They chose the lower frontal plate, which was reduced from 60mm to 50mm.
The belly armour at the front of the tank was also reduced from 25mm to 16mm.
Another identifiable feature is the deletion of the drivers viewing port.
This was a perceived weak spot, and was replaced with a pivoting periscope in front of the driver’s hatch.
To further simplify production many Model G vehicles had all-steel road wheels,
while others kept the rubber rim.
During the production run of the Panther G the mantlet was revised,
adding an armoured chin. The original curved design had a shot trap.
Incoming shells that hit the bottom of the mantlet would be deflected down into the hull roof,
and the big chin stopped this from happening.
The Panther G was the last type to see combat during the Second World War.
There was, however, one last variant. The Panther F.
The model F was on the verge of going into full scale production as the war ended for the Germans in May 1945.
The design was going to feature a new narrowed turret, known as Schmalturm.
This turret would taper at an angle to a much narrower frontal profile,
meaning this plate could be a lot thicker at 120mm,
while the turret itself was actually lighter than the earlier model.
The mantlet was a lot like that seen on the tiger II,
and the gun was to be slightly redesigned to fit the new turret.
The hull saw some minor changes as well, with thicker roof armour and the MG34 hull machine gun being replaced with an STG44.
Some Model F turrets were completed. Some Model F hulls were completed.
But the two were never paired.
There are photos of the Model G hull mounting the new turret and there are photos of the Model F hull mounting a Model G turret,
but official reports state a complete Panther F never existed.
However one destroyed panther found in the ruins of Berlin appears to be one of these G/F hybrids,
suggesting a Model F hull did actually see combat in the last days of the war,
before being knocked out by the Red Army.
The only surviving piece of the Panther F design is a mangled Schmalturm in the UK.
This turret was used as a range target for years until it’s historical significance was recognised and it was added to the Tank Museum’s collection.
The 3 and a half panther variants that saw combat made their mark,
making up more than half of German armour by the end of the war and becoming infamous as one of the fearsome big cats.
Of course, there are many other panther variants and derivatives that weren’t medium tanks,
and maybe I’ll focus on these in a different video if you guys are interested.
Thanks for watching I’ll see you next time!