"Panther ultimate evolution – Panther Ausf.F" Topic

"there seems to be a lot of confusion about the Panther and its historical properties. Partially, it's because it's such a legendary machine and partially simply because it's German and – for some reason – over the decades since the WW2, numerous hoaxes, legends or simply confusions sprang up about the possible Panther upgrades.

Panther Ausführung F (Ausf.F or Panther F) was to be the ultimate evolution program for the Panther vehicle. Its prominent feature was supposed to be the Schmalturm (narrow turret)…"

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Amicalement
Armand

If only the war had continued a couple of years more without the allies developing anything new themselves, Germany would of had time to replace all its horses and carts with these uber-paper-panzers (not to mention their jet fighters, jet bombers, helicopters, atomic bombs, ICBMs, etc, etc……).

Hornswoggler +1

Somebody once made the shrewd point on this board that WW2 did actually feature quite a lot of actual uberweapons, either perfected or introduced:

- assault rifle
- radar
- sonar
- squeezebore tungsten round
- one-shot throwaway bazooka
- jet fighter
- helicopter
- TV-controlled anti-ship missile
- cruise missile
- ballistic missile
- oxygen-fuelled torpedo
- mag railgun
- nuke
- hydrogen peroxide submarine

and that's without considering tech that wasn't itself the weapon, but that made the weapon more effective:

- centimetric radar
- proximity fuse
- Ultra

and so on.

What they almost all of them have in common is that they didn't alter the outcome. Without the above the same side would have won just the same.

The fun, interesting thing about all this Luft '46, what-if supertank stuff is then working out exactly why it wouldn't have made an iota of difference.

In the case of the Panther F, it would have been shoddily made and either broken down before it reached the battlefield or never made it at all because railways or there'd have been no fuel.

Next!

What I want to know is who makes on in 28mm.

Perfect for Berlin '45.

The allies fought the war with well developed (and proven) tech from the late 1930 and early 1940 era (the atomic bomb being one of the rare exceptions). The Nazis tried fighting the war with experimental and unproven (at that time) tech of the late 1940 and early 1950 era.

Germany was fighting out of its league, a resource weak country, very poorly organized and run, severe in-fighting at all levels of the political and military, unable to utilize the resources it had or grabbed, etc.

If the Pz V was such a great weapon system, why was it laden with so many known mechanical issues? Like many of the Nazi supposed "wonder" weapons, it sucked up resources, both material wise and industrial production wise, delayed production and numbers of existing weapons needed and proved to be meaningless in deciding the struggle.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

This has prompted a great discussion. The idea is promoted by video games that the "Nazis" were working on secret weapons such as flying saucers, death rays and impregnable tanks.

What they instead actually produced was rocket fighters that left not a trace of the pilot after a bad landing, jet fighters whose turbine blades came adrift and, anyway, still had to land at a sensible speed with three P51s on their tail or tanks which could not use many bridges and broke down anyway. The payload of a single V2 was fraction of that of a Lancaster, U boats were a death trap by the end of the war and heavy water was a dead end in A bomb construction.

Other than SS Zombie warriors…grossly overrated science.

The best single-sentence summary of what was wrong with Nazi procurement came from (of all people) David Irving, in his history of the V-weapons program, "The Mare's Nest." The Nazis, he said, prioritized weapons that were spectacular; the Allies focused on those that were strategic; QED. Coming from such a source, count that as evidence against interest. The only thing Irving left unstated is the fact that the demand for spectacle arose from the nature of the regime, which means from Hitler himself.

Hitler's tendency to memorize trivial details about weapons without really understanding how they worked is well documented, but one thing that probably doesn't get mentioned enough is the emphasis he placed on how they looked: he wanted his tanks to look terrifying- it was fundamentally an aesthetic, rather than a practical impulse. It is one underlying reason why so many people are so interested in details of German equipment and uniforms: they look impressive. He made a lot of decisions on purely aesthetic grounds. Those probably helped lose the war, but they account for the enduring interest in the equipment (along with the systems analyst's/wargamer's desire to tweak the inputs a bit and see if the model churns out different results).

Interesting… thanks!

Amicalement
Armand

Hitler's tendency to memorize trivial details about weapons without really understanding how they worked is well documented, but one thing that probably doesn't get mentioned enough is the emphasis he placed on how they looked: he wanted his tanks to look terrifying- it was fundamentally an aesthetic, rather than a practical impulse. It is one underlying reason why so many people are so interested in details of German equipment and uniforms: they look impressive. He made a lot of decisions on purely aesthetic grounds

Germany developed a better helmet during WW2. The new design though offering more protection was rejected by Hitler simply because he did not like the look of it. Some were used in WW2 (There is newsreel footage of one being worn) but the new helmet became better known when the East German Army made it their standard helmet.

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On the subject of steel helmets, there is a fascinating book by Bashforth Dean, curator of the Medieval Arms collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art NY describing how medieval helmet making methods had to be re-studied to enable efficient manufacture of modern helmets in WW1.

Here is an overview – link

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Sorry – got the author's first name incorrect.

Bashford Dean -
"Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare"
including World War II Supplement.
Publisher: Carl J Pugliese, Tuckahoe NY; 1977

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