When I bring up the topic of heavy tanks it would be no surprise if the first vehicles
to pop into your head would be something like the Tiger tanks or perhaps the IS series. With
almost limitless videos and books about these more famous machines there is much to learn about them.
However, this oversaturation has the unintended side effect of making lesser known designs become
even more obscure to the average person. Although I’m by no means saying no one
talks about other vehicles, I think most would agree with me that this leaves a large gap in
the knowledge of those who label themselves tank enthusiasts. This is even true for me as I still
learn about new vehicles constantly even after years of learning about the subject. Today we
will be looking at one example of this which originated from Hungary known as the 44M Tas.
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Our story begins in 1943, although you could argue it truly began the moment Hungary joined Operation
Barbarossa. By 1943 though the situation was becoming notably worse especially in regards to
the armor they were fielding. Unsurprisingly this led to a request being sent to their German allies
in an effort to secure a license to produce their own version of the much more advanced Panzers
of that period. Unfortunately for Hungary this request would be denied with one of the primary
reasons stemming from Hungary’s lack of suitable industry to even manufacture the tanks if they did
receive the license to do so. With no alternative they turned inwards and the Ministry of Defense
began work on a domestic project to fill this need. This would first start with an upgrade
program for the Turán tanks already in service, but would ultimately result in a brand new design
to replace them known as the 44M Tas. All in all this early development period for the new
tank would last from around April to August 1943 with the first blueprints for the tank completed.
Looking at the design it should now be obvious why I titled this video as “Hungary’s Panther”
with the tank clearly being influenced by the German vehicle. This can be traced to several
officers from Hungary who visited Kummersdorf in early 1943 and saw both the Tiger and Panther.
These same officers would then put that experience to work on the Tas. Outside of the general hull
shape and design as well as the turret sharing a loose resemblance to that of the Panther the
vehicles are still distinctly different. This should become obvious later, but the last thing
I want you to take away from this video is that this was a copy of the Panther, which it was not.
One of the most noticeable differences can be found in the suspension of the vehicle.
Unlike the torsion bar suspension with interleaved road wheels found on the Panther the Tas used a
system with pairs of bogies and leaf springs. Although this was somewhat influenced by the
Panzer 38 (t) the Hungarian design used smaller bogies as well as adding shock absorbers.
Seemingly this would result in a smoother ride for the vehicle although it’s hard to say if this
would result in any issues for the tank later. Moving back to the hull we can take a look at
the armor protection it provided. Frontally the tank would have 75mms on the upper plate
heavily sloped with 100 mms on the midplate and 75 on the lower plate. The armor model I found
does not seem to include the angled corners the final design features, but I think we can assume
those would likely be 50mms as usually tanks with those types of corners feature
thinner armor in those locations. However I can’t say for certain so it could be more or less. The
sides would be protected by 50mms at a slope above the tracks and 50mms vertical behind the tracks.
The upper portion of the rear would feature 100mms of armor with the lower area having 75 and finally
the belly and deck armor being protected by 20mms. Keep in mind these numbers are just
what I could find and are largely based on one drawing showing the various armor thicknesses.
Contrary to that many sources list the maximum armor as 120mms so there is certainly room for
inaccuracies in these figures. Regardless of that when we consider the angling and the fact that the
hull was of welded construction this still gave the Tas a quite respectable level of protection.
As for the turret not as much is known aside from a rough armor thickness of 100mms.
I did see one place list the rear armor as being 50mms, but I’m not entirely sure
where that figure came from. Like I mentioned earlier the design of the turret is quite similar
to the Panther albeit with a more octagonal shape. This would house the main armament of the tank
which originally was planned to be a Hungarian modified, license produced version of the 80mm
Bofors AA gun from Sweden. This ended up not being ready in time for the prototypes, though, so a
75mm L/43 was used as a placeholder. Alongside this would be an 8mm coaxial machine gun.
Another machine gun was considered for the hull front but it does not appear in the mockup photos.
Whether this is due to the deletion of the MG or another reason is not clear.
To power this vehicle Hungary did not have many options. Some ideas were tossed around
of creating a new engine for the tank though this was not realistic for them. Instead it
was decided to use two of the V8s from the Turán to provide a combined 520 horsepower. This had
some benefits as the engines were already tested and in production, however for a tank which would
weigh in the neighborhood of 37 tons this would leave it somewhat underpowered. For comparison
the uparmored Sherman “Jumbo” had a very similar weight and horsepower at around 38 tons with 500
horsepower. Despite this similarity the Tas was estimated to be capable of a max speed of around
45 kilometers per hour. I do question this a bit considering the Jumbo only managed around
35kph with similar power. This could be due to the dual engine layout or any number of other factors.
Another possible reason for this could be that the tank was never actually tested so the mobility
figures are not realistic. Considering there is usually some power lost when using two engines
together to power one gearbox I tend to lean more towards the second option. Whatever the case may
be we sadly will probably never know. At this point you may be wondering
why this tank would be considered a heavy tank when everything about its design is much more
like the mediums of other nations. This stems from the way Hungary designated its tanks.
To them any tank with a cannon larger than 75mms was considered a heavy tank thus the 44m Tas would
have been a heavy tank to them. For an example of this the Turán II which used a short 75mm was
also referred to as the Heavy Turán at times. Following completion of its design the Tas was
approved and two prototypes were ordered, one mild steel and the other fully armored. Reportedly the
mild steel prototype was nearing completion after being started in May of 1944 with the
hull and drivetrain essentially complete and work beginning on the turret and gun.
Unfortunately for the Hungarian Panther in July an Allied bombing raid would put an end to the
project when the factory was heavily damaged. This destroyed virtually everything leading to the work
being halted. Some attempts were made to restart the program, but this was never truly achieved.
After so many years little has survived from the program with only a few photos of a scale
mockup and a few drawings having been recovered. Overall the design of the tank does seem to show
promise with it using mostly proven components like the engine and suspension. However given
the pressure from the advancing Red army I doubt there was much hope for this tank
even if the Allied bombs had missed their mark. This is not quite the end of the story for this
tank though as another supposed variation would surface decades later in the 1980s.
You may see this tank destroyer brought up if you look into the 44m Tas yourself and it does
seem plausible at first glance. As the story goes, the son of one of the chief engineers at
Weiss Manfréd, the company originally tasked with building the prototypes, started to piece together
the story of this vehicle. He learned that some of the parts for the tanks were made in pairs
which would indicate a second vehicle. Although later documents found more recently revealed this
to be a second prototype he made the assumption that this was a Jagdpanther type tank destroyer
using the same hull. Some sources do claim that there were plans for this with an 88mm gun, but
this is likely parroted from the earlier mistake much like the confusion surrounding the Panther II
which was largely due to one fairly minor error. It wouldn’t be too surprising for something like
this to really have existed and been forgotten. With no evidence to support its existence outside
of this mistake though it's likely a fake tank. In the end Hungary would never field a domestic
heavy tank, though they did get some Tigers from Germany around the time this project
was underway. This could have been another contributing factor to the program never being
restarted but that’s just a guess on my part. Let me know what you think of this tank in the
comments, and if this is the first time you’ve heard of this largely forgotten tank I’d love
to know. As always thank you all for watching and to my channel members who help support the channel
even when the content may slow down a little, I really appreciate your support. One last reminder
to check out Call of War using that link below to get the special bonus and a thanks to them
for supporting this channel. Hope you all enjoyed today’s video and I will see you in the next one.