"Panther's Failed Debut " Topic

"Everything started with Hitler's wish to crush the USSR in the summer of 1943 with one offensive with massive amounts of new vehicles. The cause was clear: the "trial by fire" of the few Tiger tanks at Leningrad one year prior turned out to be an unsuccessful swim meet in swamps under Soviet artillery fire.

The Fuhrer's wish immediately led to several negative consequences. One was that the requirement for new vehicles delayed the offensive until enough of them were built. Two was that the removal of bugs, without which technology exists only in fairy tales, has been sacrificed to speed up production. As a result, Panther Ausf. D tanks that made it to Kursk suffered from growing pains. To put it simply, they broke down from minimal enemy contributions, as well as by themselves.

Two battalions of Panthers that arrived were united in the 39th tank regiment under the command of Major Lauchert. When Operation Citadel began, it contained 200 new tanks. The regiment was reinforcing the Grossdeutschland Panzergrenadier division in the 48th tank corps. This division had its own tank regiment, under the command of Colonel von Strachwitz. Both regiments were united in the 10th tank brigade, and Colonel Decker was appointed as its commander…"
More here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Yep, "All Hilter's fault" again ……

"Our tanks were bunched together under fire from heavy guns. The first burst cost my company two tanks. The situation was dangerous, and no orders came from the battalion commander. I ran up to his tank as fast as I could. When I peered into his turret, I saw him shaking in fear. This was Major Tebbe, from the Putlos tank academy, sent in yesterday evening to replace the battalion commander, Sievers, who has fallen ill before the offensive. It seems his trial by fire proved too difficult. After I explained to him that we must move now before taking more unnecessary losses, all he could squeeze out in answer was "yes, Gabriel, take us away."

Give lie to the old wargaming canards that tanks can't be pinned and are immune to artillery fire

All study seems to indicate that wartime mistakes were made almost exclusively by people who didn't survive to write memoirs.

good article for sure, but as usual for pieces concerning the Panther's myriad failings at Kursk, it ignores quite an important set of stats:
Despite there rarely being more than 25% of the panthers (fewer than 40 vehicles) operational at any one one time, in the fighting up to July 15 in 48 corps sector there were 559 Soviet tanks destroyed or captured, of these, a whopping 269 were destroyed by just those few panthers…over half the total actual kills… which for a "failure" is pretty good going
(see Zetterling: appendix 4)

Glad you enjoyed the article my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

Christot:

Thanks for the reality check re Panthers. Kill claims should be checked against actual Soviet losses but still impressive.

Zetterling is a very good researcher but Soviet records can be hard to track down.

TomT

Bad terrain and minefields seem to have contributed greatly to the lack of success.