Panzer V Panther
Designed in 1942 as a counter to the Soviet T-34, and entering service in 1943, the Panzerkampfwagen V Panther tank was intended to become Germany’s main medium tank and replace the Panzers IV and III. It was significantly cheaper than the Tiger, whose performance it equaled in many respects, and only slightly more expensive than the Panzer IV, which the Panther excelled by a wide margin. Nonetheless, technical issues, Allied bombing, and production bottlenecks prevented Panthers from being manufactured in sufficient numbers, and they ended up serving alongside Panzer IVs until war’s end.
A German commission assessing captured T-34s in 1941 noted the effectiveness of their sloped armor, which, combined with a powerful 76.2mm gun, wide tracks, and good power to weight ratio, made it almost the perfect medium tank. So the Germans set out to make their own perfect medium tank by borrowing the T-34’s main characteristics. Being German, however, they recoiled from the T-34’s crudity and sought to improve on it. They over-engineered things, and the resulting Panther ended up plagued with mechanical issues throughout its career.
The Panther had the same engine as the Tiger tank but was 12 to 16 tons lighter, which made the Panther faster and better at traversing rough terrain. The Panther’s sloped armor was as effective as the Tiger’s thicker flat armor, and the Panther’s 75mm gun had more penetrating power than the Tiger’s 88mm, making it deadlier against enemy tanks. However, the Panther’s smaller shells were less effective when firing high explosives.
With its near perfect blend of firepower, armor, and mobility, sophisticated targeting sights, and use of technology far ahead of its time such as infrared vision, the Panther was Germany’s overall best tank of the war, and some argue that it was WWII’s best tank, period, surpassing even the T-34. Were it not for unreliability issues that were never ironed, that latter claim might have been true. However, the Panthers often did not work: their engines had a notoriously short lifespan, their overlapping road wheels fared badly in the snow and mud of the Eastern Front, and their off-road range was a mere 62 miles.