will you mass produced crappy shermans or have limted numbers of tiger tanks

[Darkrenown]

Ugh, ok, Panthers vs Shermans it is.

Again, what use has a tank if it can't survive in a tank to tank battle? Thats a logical flaw imo. A flaw wich many tankers payed with their lives in reality.

Am intersting quote maybe:
The heavy U.S. tank losses in the Battle of the Bulge against a concentrated German tank force composed of some 400 Panther tanks,[35] as well as Tiger II tanks and other German armored fighting vehicles, revealed the deficiencies in the M4 Shermans and tank destroyers on the U.S. side. The British forces armour was somewhat better equipped to deal with such a force, having adapted some Shermans to carry a more powerful 17 Pounder gun.[36][37] On 22 December 1944, while the battle still raged, the brand new T26E3 tanks were ordered to be deployed to Europe. The unexpected German tank attack had settled the question once and for all as to whether the T26 was needed. Twenty were sent in the first shipment arriving at the port of Antwerp in January
There is much more of that here and in other places http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M26_Pershing

E.g. read here for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanks_in_the_United_States
So US started with tanks on the same lvl as germans PzI/PzII but developed quite quick up to the M4(Sherman). And also just after starting prodcution of M4 the T-20 was designed. That lead later to the M-26. So US could have had more devastating tanks with ease much earlier. Intersting read about the M-26 in the above wiki:

That's an interesting quote indeed you have there. If it's correct, and only the Battle of the Bulge "revealed the deficiencies in the M4 Shermans and tank destroyers on the U.S. side", does that mean that the Allies had had no problems defeating German armour between the Normandy landings and the Bulge battle? I decided to follow up the citations on that and they link to the Wiki's article on the Shermen and a study "THE EVOLUTION AND DEMISE OF U.S. TANK DESTROYER DOCTRINE IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR". The Sherman article only says:

Following the clamor for better armor and firepower after the losses of the Battle of the Bulge

which only indicates a "clamor"
while the study concluded the BotB section with:

Conclusion
Throughout Europe the tank destroyers proved time and time again their
versatility on the battlefield. Although not always as lethal as they should have been, in
light of heavier and heavier German tanks, their mobility and ability to strike targets with
direct and indirect fire made them a valuable asset. By the end of the World War II both
the towed and self-propelled tank destroyers proved their worth on the battlefield. As
Hugh M. Cole cites in the Center of Military History’s official account of the actions of
tank destroyers in the Ardennes, “Tank destroyers are clearly traceable in the Ardennes
fighting as over and over again influencing the course of battle.” Although none of the
tank destroyers rose to the initial level of expectations of the Tank Destroyer Branch,
each platform had performed well, based on the users’ knowledge of the weapons system
and the situation in which it was employed.

It seems a fairly big stretch on wiki writer's part to distill this into the battle "revealing the deficiencies in the M4 Shermans and tank destroyers on the U.S. side."

I have a BotB quote for you too though, it's from a review of the book Panther vs Sherman: Battle of the Bulge 1944 (Duel), the reviewer is historian R. A Forczyk(check the "About me" section if you like):

The real lessons of this book are delivered in the concluding sections on statistics and analysis. Contrary to what readers conditioned to war movies or computer games might expect, the author notes that actual statistical data indicates that most tank vs. tank battles were small, involving only 4-9 tanks on each side. The data also indicates that the defender had a distinct advantage, since they usually got to fire first. Despite its vaunted post-war reputation, the author uses data from 29 engagements involving Shermans and Panthers to conclude that, "the popular myths that Panthers enjoyed a 5-to-1 kill ratio against Shermans or that it took five Shermans to knock out a Panther have no basis at all in the historical records." Further, he states that, "in a head-to-head duel, the Panther Ausf G was clearly superior to the M4A3 (76mm)...[but] tactical considerations were often paramount." Also, "the Sherman offered a better balance of mass and quality than did the Panther." The statistics that the author provides indicate that the Germans committed about 416 Panthers to the Ardennes offensive and lost 180, while the Americans committed about 600 M4A3 tanks and lost about 90. However, these statistics do not break down how many tanks were destroyed by other tanks as opposed to lost to mines, A/T guns or mechanical breakdown. Thus, the Shermans likely inflicted more damage on their opponents, but the actual results of the duel are left a bit murky.

From another review talking about the same book:

The surprising conclusion that Steven Zaloga brings out at the end of his book was that the Sherman tank proved to be 3.6 times more effective than the Panther in actual battle: the Sherman crews were much better trained and battle-hardened, while the Panther crews were often inexperienced and lesser trained; despite the qualitative inferiority of the Sherman, U.S. crews knew how to use the Sherman tank's mobility and faster turret to shoot the Panther's sides & rear armor; the Sherman was much more reliable and they were produced in far greater numbers, while the Panther was unreliable and there weren't enough of them to go around. Zaloga's conclusions seemed similar to your conclusions in your book regarding the effectiveness of the T-34 vs. Panther in actual battle.

I don't have a source for this, but I have seen it repeatedly and it matches with the above:

Robert Forzcyk: ”Overall, US armor destroyed more German tanks than German tanks destroyed US tanks, by a factor of about 3:2.”

I'm also going to link another interesting article from WoT's Tank expert, The_Chieftain:
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/91572-us-guns-german-armor-pt-2/
It's pretty long, but rather interesting. However, a quick quote:

In September, 1944, the US Third Army was across the Moselle River in the vicinity of Nancy. The Germans launched a series of armored counterattacks with the intention of restoring their line and crushing the over-extended U.S. spearheads of 4th Armored Division. The 21. Panzer Division and 15. Panzergrenadier Division led the attacks. Third Army stripped troops from uninvolved units to counter this attack on the bridgehead. This left Combat Command A (CCA) of 4th Armored Division isolated near Arracourt and generally under-strength.

Rather than distributing all of the tanks coming in as replacements across many panzer divisions which would still inevitably be under-strength, the Germans had instead siphoned off many of the new tanks to create a number of Panzer Brigades. These were powerful armor-heavy units without the tail of a division – spears that were all blade and little shaft. At 0730 on September 19, 1944, the German 113th Panzer Brigade slammed into Combat Command A.

CCA at this time had only one company of M4 tanks forward, with a company of M10 tank destroyers in reserve. 113th Panzer Brigade hit them with four companies of Panther tanks and a company of assault guns, along with two battalions of panzergrenadiers (armored infantry).

But one of the prices the Germans paid for creating new units, rather than re-building the existing cadres of their panzer divisions, was that the panzer brigades were inexperienced and under-trained. And they were fighting veteran US crews on a battlefield that allowed the US forces room to maneuver.

CCA of the 4th Armored Division was equipped mostly with 75mm-armed M4 tanks. They fought a series of delaying actions from ambush positions which bled the 113th Brigade every step of the way, slowed their advance, and reduced their cohesion. A second company of M4s arrived as re-enforcements. Once the Germans paused to regroup, CCA launched its own attack out of the fog, rolling up the German flank, and all but annihilating 113th Panzer Brigade.

The next day as they surveyed the battlefield the Americans counted forty-three knocked out German AFVs, almost all of them Panthers. German losses were actually greater than that, but they had managed to recover several knocked-out tanks as they withdrew. The two battalions of panzergrendiers had been shattered as well – overrun and scattered, suffering over 500 casualties.

And what price did the Americans pay for this victory? Six soldiers had been killed, thirteen soldiers wounded. Three M10s and five M4 tanks had been knocked out.

CCA 4th Armored Division did not win with overwhelming airpower or artillery support. Fog kept the airplanes home and made it almost impossible to bring down heavy fire concentrations on the Germans. The battle was almost exclusively a match between the armored forces. Nor did the Americans win due to overwhelming numbers. Overall they were outnumbered in both tanks and infantry. They won because they out-maneuvered their enemy, and concentrated forces for the decisive punch.

Also, from earlier in the same article, about the Allied victories in France preceding the BotB, just to highlight how useful it is to have a medium tank that can actually drive places instead of having to be shuttled about on trains:

The confines of the boccage had been overcome. Once the US Army had achieved freedom of maneuver it moved so quickly, overcoming or by-passing German positions so rapidly that the Germans could not organize a defense. Ever since a cadre of US Army officers had observed and studied the German campaign across France in 1940, the doctrines, plans, training, and weapons had been developed for this. It was all working. The paper specifications may have said that the Germans should be able to stop the American tanks, but it seems that nobody told the crews of the M4s this.

In the US Army the armoured divisions, and even the infantry divisions, had a level of mobility that no other army could match (although by this time the British came very close). The US Army was not bound to the rail infrastructure. That was a good thing, as the allied air forces had spent months pulverizing the rail lines and marshalling facilities across Europe, and particularly across France. The US Army had enough trucks in ETO to move entire divisions by road (though not every division at once). The artillery was motorized, unless it was self-propelled (which was even better). And the supply echelons were motorized. Everything that was not a motor vehicle moved as cargo in a motor vehicle. Once on the move, no other nation could react to the American speed.

It's an interesting mirror to how the much more mobile Germans utterly disrupted the Allied armies in France in 1940 when they had the mobile force and the French could not react fast enough.

This isn't quite as relevant, but while I was on the WoT forum's history sperging section I found one of the poster had interview a PzIV gunner who fought in Normandy and it's another interesting read. Here's the section asking about tanks:
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/306856-interview-with-a-pziv-gunner-pt3-canadians/

What was your opinion of your unit’s performance?
We were too inexperienced and eager and we let that get the better of us. We attacked in set ambushes, frontal assaults, or badly co-ordinated thrusts. I think too many of us believed in our own superiority or the superiority of our tanks without thinking about how to use it effectively.

Do you believe that the Germans tanks were superior?
Initially yes. When it came to roughly even fights in the beginning we generally came out better than the Allies those first couple of days. But the Canadians and British learned fast and replaced their loses fast. Our tanks were great in some ways but poor in others, the Allies Sherman was all round decent and that began to tell as the battles became more and more of a bar brawl.

Any specific opinion of the Pz.IV?
I loved it. Good armour and all round combat performance if used properly, but it took some getting use to. The skirts were always getting caught in the brush or something, you really had to make sure you took care of the mechanics, and many had driving or turret quirks.

Quirks?
Well I know a few drivers complained about how the tank could jerk or lurch about unexpectedly when trying to make fine or slow adjustments. Can remember a few running into things or getting stuck because of this. I know my tank had a bit of an issue rotating the turret smoothly mechanically, it could jump a bit and there wasn’t enough fine control. I always used the manual traverse to fine tune my aiming rather than the switch. I know Siegel’s tank had the same problem.

What about the Panther?
It was a beautiful tanks but temperamental like a beautiful women <laughs>. Good armour in the front, an incredible gun, and beautiful cross county. But like a woman who gets by on looks it had personality problems. Poor gunnery control, poor side armour, required a lot of engine work to prevent fires, and it had to be driven carefully. In the opening part of a battle it was deadly, but as the battle turned into more of brawl it wasn’t so good. The Allies also tended to shoot them first. I was happier with my Pz.IV.

How about the Sherman?
Like I said it seemed to be a nice balanced tank like the Pz.IV. It didn’t excel at anything, but it deemed seem to have any glaring faults either. Gun wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. Armour wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. Driving cross-country wasn’t great, but again wasn’t bad. Actually with driving I’d say it was one area it’d was good at since they could be driven everywhere while we had to use special transport. I had a chance to look around inside one at the War Museum decades ago and I liked the layout inside more than I liked my tank’s, everything seemed better thought out for the crew.

 

[Darkrenown]

So? It seems it is still assumed by many that tanks had foremost to fight Inf.. So you can't tell people often enough, that was not the case for all countries..

It's not a false assumption. You are utterly wrong to say German tanks were not expected to fight and defeat enemy infantry and support their own infantry. That's why I said we wouldn't get anywhere.

 

[Darkrenown]

Im fully aware of the pershing which was developed as a heavy tank and that a german medium tank is comparable just shows how wrong the actual production panther is. It should have been a 30-35ton tank at most not a 45 ton tank.

Which was the idea, however:

Albert Speer recounts in his autobiography Inside the Third Reich
Since the Tiger had originally been designed to weigh fifty tons but as a result of Hitler's demands had gone up to seventy five tons, we decided to develop a new thirty ton tank whose very name, Panther, was to signify greater agility. Though light in weight, its motor was to be the same as the Tiger's, which meant it could develop superior speed. But in the course of a year Hitler once again insisted on clapping so much armor on it, as well as larger guns, that it ultimately reached forty eight tons, the original weight of the Tiger.

The design was basically sabotaged by a loon with no tank designing or armoured warfare experience, it's a wonder it worked at all.

 

[Darkrenown]

Don't know how you come to that conclusion. Never wrote that it is X vs Y.
Wasn't it your intention to show/prove that Panter was a "bad design"?

So why else do you keep bringing up other tanks in response to my posting about flaws with the Panther if not to compare them?

Don't know again how you can come to that conclusion. It was written that this decided the decsion to field M-26. So for your info, that discussion was on the table since D-Day!
Do you want to go in detail why that tank was delayed? I and others partly wrote about the reason above already.

What does this even mean? You quoted a wiki article and I showed the citations from that article showing the wiki writer was not justified in saying the BotB "revealed the deficiencies in the M4 Shermans and tank destroyers on the U.S. side". I didn't say anything about the M-26, nor do I see how it is relevant.

Lets look at that:
"The real lessons of this book are delivered in the concluding sections on statistics and analysis. Contrary to what readers conditioned to war movies or computer games might expect, the author notes that actual statistical data indicates that most tank vs. tank battles were small, involving only 4-9 tanks on each side. The data also indicates that the defender had a distinct advantage, since they usually got to fire first. Despite its vaunted post-war reputation, the author uses data from 29 engagements involving Shermans and Panthers to conclude that, "the popular myths that Panthers enjoyed a 5-to-1 kill ratio against Shermans or that it took five Shermans to knock out a Panther have no basis at all in the historical records." Further, he states that, "in a head-to-head duel, the Panther Ausf G was clearly superior to the M4A3 (76mm)...[but] tactical considerations were often paramount." Also, "the Sherman offered a better balance of mass and quality than did the Panther." The statistics that the author provides indicate that the Germans committed about 416 Panthers to the Ardennes offensive and lost 180, while the Americans committed about 600 M4A3 tanks and lost about 90. However, these statistics do not break down how many tanks were destroyed by other tanks as opposed to lost to mines, A/T guns or mechanical breakdown. Thus, the Shermans likely inflicted more damage on their opponents, but the actual results of the duel are left a bit murky."
Interesting how here is claimed first about statistics and then noted that no knowledge about what killed the Panthers were at hand.. lol

What? If you assume that rather than the Shermans destroying them they were lost to breakdowns and AT weapons that makes the Panther look even worse than if they were knocked out by enemy tanks.

See how that quotes contradicts the other already when it comes to terms of quality?
Further the most importnat point here is not the quality of the tanks, but how they were used in battle. Being outnumbered is also named..
I wonder how you see that as a posting in favour of your idea of bad designed Panthers?
Also the read from Hugh M. Cole Book is quite different. And that is an offcial US Army vet writer..
I post the link further down.

The entire point of my posting is to show that the Panther's superiority in 1v1 ranged tank duals doesn't matter! That's why it's a bad design! It sacrifices everything for this 1v1 superiority that doesn't even allow it to win battles. When a cheaper, lighter, more reliable tank is more than 3 times more effective in actually winning battles I'd say that's a pretty damning indictment of your design. Or perhaps German tank designs don't focus on winning battles?

See? Again it is about tactics used here.. lol
Must have been badly trained guys. Even more as only Panzergrendiers of 15th of those German units should have been there..
21'st was not there, So I don't know wich Panthers they have shoot down. Cany ou help me out here and provide more info on that one?
As a general hint, you should maybe not read that much on WoT forums for your reaearch:
Let me guide you here wich seems a much more noteworthy source on the battles around Nancy.
Not that "hero story" as from your link above, much more about bitter fighting on both sides..
-> http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/lorraine/lorraine-content.html
THE LORRAINE CAMPAIGN
by Hugh M. Cole
HISTORICAL DIVISION
UNITED STATES ARMY
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1993
..

The wiki page for the 21st agree it was fighting around Nancy in sept 44 anyway, but it doesn't really matter which units were involved, the point was Shermens winning vs Panthers while outnumbered and without air support. If your book cast doubt on the numbers involved or the outcome, please direct me to the page in question - I don't really want to read the entire thing at this point.

It doesn't had to use the trains, they did that to lessen the burden, it it could also be moved alone on road like in the Ardennes?

Are you now going to pretend Panthers weren't moved by rail whenever possible because they kept breaking down when they drove any great distance? Obviously they could drive over tactical distances for battles, but that took it's toll. Reflect back to the "these statistics do not break down how many tanks were destroyed by other tanks as opposed to lost to mines, A/T guns or mechanical breakdown"
Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_tank#Steering_and_transmission

Due to the mechanical unreliability of the final gear the Panther had to be driven with care, a characteristic shared with the Tiger tanks as well as Jagdtigers. Long road marches would result in a significant number of losses due to breakdowns, and so the German Army had to ship the tanks by rail as close to the battlefield as possible

I'm utterly wrong? You haven't read my posts, are you trying to put words in my mouth or do I switched my base line in that matter?
I never wrote that German were not expecting to fight and defeat enemy infantry!
I wrote that they focused on AT capabilities first. Thats quite a difference, no?

So what do you imagine German tanks spent more time doing in WWII? Fighting pure tank on tank battles or fighting along side infantry in combined arms battles? Are you aware the PzIV was designed as an infantry support tank?

Designed as an infantry-support tank, the Panzer IV was not originally intended to engage enemy armor—that function was performed by the lighter Panzer III.

Did you know that:

as the Germans faced the formidable T-34, stronger anti-tank guns were needed. Since the Panzer IV had a bigger turret ring, the role was reversed. The Panzer IV mounted the long barreled 7.5 cm KwK 40 gun and engaged in tank-to-tank battles. The Panzer III became obsolete in this role and for most purposes was supplanted by the Panzer IV. From 1942, the last version of Panzer III mounted the 7.5 cm KwK 37 L/24, better suited for infantry support.

*from the PZ 3 and 4 wiki pages*
(as an side, another reason the Panther was a bad design was that despite a much larger hull than the PzIV the turret ring was basically the same size and so it couldn't be upgunned)

The Tiger also used an 88mm gun rather than a long 75mm which would have provided better anti-armour performance due to the greater effectiveness of the large High Explosive shell.

German armour did not focus on anti-tank roles above all else, only the Panther did so and this is one of the many reasons it is a poor design.

Again, I never wrote that medium tanks should not fit in more roles. Just that germans thought about AT-capabilities first..
I also never wrote that I only see the good AT capabilities. I repeatetly wrote that Germans had different focus!
I don't get why some assume that a HE shell from Panther was soo bad that it couldn't fulfill its anti inf role anymore? Or the MG's were suddenly not working?
Panther was very good a AT and good enough at Anti inf! Why should it be suddenly worse jsut because its gun is better as the one from PzIV in AT?

Generally when you replace your main tank you want the replacement to be better than what you are replacing. The reason the Panther's HE round was worse than the PzIV's was because the Panther had a much higher velocity gun (for better armour penetration), this meant that the walls of the HE shell had to be thicker -meaning less room for explosives inside- to withstand the pressure of firing, and that the shell tended to be buried much deeper into the ground before exploding which lessened the effect even more.

Also SOV was going for AT capabilities first. That the 85mm was better at anti inf is a plus, but it was also worse in AT..

No. The Soviets used the 76mm gun in the T-34 over the better penetrating 57mm precisely because they wanted a large HE shelland then only upgraded to 85mm because it could do both jobs better. For the same reason they used a 122mm gun on the IS tank despite having a 100mm gun with better penetration.

Well really, I'll try to repeat myself that long as you keep on putting wrong assumptions(imo) up on here..
I think by now should be clear that the initial statemets like The Panther was an overall a bad design" or "all nations had tank design with ant-inf warfare in mind" first are moot by now..

Bring on more of such if you dare, I can tear such apart every time with ease..

You have proven nothing moot and are tearing nothing apart.

 

[Darkrenown]

Yes, my tank sperging is more detail than the game will go into.

 

[Darkrenown]

Yup, for pure tank-shooting the 75/70 is the better gun.

 

[Darkrenown]

what are you talking about?!, of course the 88mm had better penetration! you can not just look at mussel velocity.
the t 34 armor was thin, about 45 mm, it was the insane sloop (60 degrees!!) that made it almost invulnerable to most German A-tank weapons, remember the deadly 88mm flank gun? some believe that was the hole purpose of the tiger! a Mobil defense plant-form with the great 88mm KuK 36/L 53, the adaptation of the flank 88mm/36

It's odd you quote the WoT wiki at me but don't check the penetration values Wot uses either:
7,5 cm KwK 42 L/70 150/194/38 mm
8,8 cm KwK 36 L/56 132/171/44 mm

You could also check wikipedia's pages for those guns.

 

[Darkrenown]

Well, you might have notived that I posted also answers to others, not only your posts..

You posted it in direct reply to me under a quote of mine. If it wasn't directed at me it was very unclear.

The M-26 was brought into action, because the need for a bigger gun and protection as the M4 could use at the time. Thats not a deficiency of the M4 in my view.
It was just a comparable fighting vehicle as the Panther desperately needed to accompy the Sherman maybe.
Interestingly the Pershing had similar problems as the Panther. That much for the "bad design" of Panther..
Just some technical limitations wich resulted out of some decsions aorund he inital design process. Most had been dealt with later on..

Other tanks having problems doesn't make the Panther less bad, although the fact that it had problems might be one of the reason the US didn't propose to replace all M4s with M-26s mid war. And it was your quote saying BotB found "deficiencies", not me.

I don't get that logic behind. So we don't know wat disabled the tanks, but of course that makes them even worse? Is that indicating the main line of your points here? Just to make that tank bad?
The quote in question shows that such data should be treated carfully. As the authors assumption was that less Shermans lossed as Panthers makes Panthers bad. While we in fact have no detail why/how these tanks were lost.
That was all.

Yes, if your tanks just break down in, or en route to, a battle that makes them worse than a tank that actually engages the enemy. At the very least it makes the enemy use up ammo if they made it there.

If you had read in the link that I gave you, you might have seen that the other author describes the actions in that area quite different and more like a hisitorian. Not like the links you gave imo.
Alone that the 21th was not there should make you alerted.. There was no such brilliant "one battle only" where the Panthers were rushing in and killed by superior Sherman tankers.
Instead there was severe figthing and GER was attacking hvy fortified area around Nancy multiple time. And US send in reinforcements multiple times too.
US made good use of their tanks in that area though.

I'm not reading an entire book you linked. Does it or does it not cast doubt on the battle I posted? If so, give me the page number, if not it is irrelevant.

The wiki page for the battle around Nancy doesn't list it though..
But maybe that the whole story is not true does matter maybe.. You just need to read the part around the battles north/South of Nancy, as that was the author you linked writing about.
Maybe he just mistook it with the battle around Arracourt? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arracourt
As there GER lost brand new Panthers with inexperienced soldiers against Shermans. But it was heavy fog involved limiting sight(100yrd), enemy air dominace etc too.
So again, also here no "supremacy story" at all.. But well done use of given units CAS/ART/Intel/Tanks.
And again a "historian" mixed it up..

You can't have both fog limiting sight AND enemy air dominance as factors, the fog would prevent use of air power. Exactly as my link said. Fog affects Shermans just as much as Panthers, but since Panthers are bad at close combat it works out better for the Sherman. Again, long range tank combat power at the expense of everything else proves to work out poorly in actual battles.

No, it makes sense to move by rail to lesen the burden of your equipment.
But do you really think that the tank like Panther only were used only along raillines or only by GER?
I also asked you already if you thought that Panthers were moving on rails in Ardennes offensive..
Sure it takes its toll, but that is pretty ususal by moving on tracks.

Ok, here you're just wandering off into fantasy and denial. I already said of course Panthers could drive tactical distances but long road marches were avoided because they would break down so often. From the Panther wiki page, again:

Due to the mechanical unreliability of the final gear the Panther had to be driven with care, a characteristic shared with the Tiger tanks as well as Jagdtigers. Long road marches would result in a significant number of losses due to breakdowns, and so the German Army had to ship the tanks by rail as close to the battlefield as possible.

Every source on Panthers, and indeed Tigers, agrees it had to be moved by rail whenever possible. I feel like I'm being asked to prove the moon isn't made of cheese here...

Do you missed this?
Tiger Design started aganin Spring '41, at that time the '88 was thought best fit for a heavy tank.
At the time of the design for Panther a brand new tank guns was needed. So based on the experience with "75mm KwK 40L/48"(design from '39) from PzIV the "75mm KwK 42L/70" was designed.
And yes it had a worse HE impact as '88 but not as PzIV, but way better AT capability wich fits well into the need of german AFV..
As in the East(!) were also heavies to fight, not "only" mediums as in the West wich came later as thes design of Panther..
And bad designed Panther had also much more armour to carry, so it should be bigger as the PzIV. Thats no bad design, thats plain logic. Seriously..
And further, why did the TigerII get a longer '88 and not a 150mm. Sure because it was designed to fight infantry hmm?
Why was the PzIV upgunned for better AT capabilities? Why were the StuG designed for Inf support and not the tanks? Why where the StuG's attached instead to the ART? Maybe it was all by purpose?
Could it be that GER had a different opinion as other countries on the main usage of tanks? Maybe worth some thoughts..

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. From the little I can pick out, I will say, again, the bad design of the Panther relating to it's size is that:
Despite being much larger and heavier than the PzIV it did not have a larger turret ring, so it couldn't be upgunned, and it failed to add enough side armour to stop the Soviet AT guns. And that it became too heavy for it's drive systems, of course.
You know, flaws which the Germans saw and proposed to fix with the Panther 2 project.

And I don't know why you think the HE from the "75mm KwK 42L/70 should be way worse as the from the "75mm KwK 40L/48"? The walls had to be thicker.. Aha.
The projectile was nearly the same weight though. The whole round was "just" ~3kg heavier. So it seems the engineers found a quite good enough solution for this gun of a "bad designed" tank.
PzIV: Sprgr.Patr.34
Muzzle velocity: 550 m/s
Projectile weight: 5.75 kg
Round weight: 8.71 kg

Panther: Sprenggranate 42
Muzzle velocity: 700 m/s
Projectile weight: 5.74 kg
Round weight: 11.14 kg

I'm not sure what you think this shows, the round was heavier because thick metal shell casing is heavier than explosive filler.

After all that should have had more then enough compared that initially the PzII with 37mm was seen capable enough to fight Infantry.
We are not talking about taking out "concrete emplacements" where the gun from Panther was maybe even better due to higher velocity.

Technically a rock is enough to fight infantry with, it doesn't mean weapons development stopped there.

And as a last note on this part, Panther was designed as replacment for medium tanks as T-34 was first seen on the battlefield. Not because some "über-soldiers" have been seen that needed dire improvements in fighting capabilities..

I have no idea what this means.

Not all true.
Right that the T-34 had an initial design already the short 76mm(L-10/F-11) as it had a different focus as the german types. And the calibre was nearly doubled in comparison to BT-7 it was seen suffcient in its AT capabilities.
That was soon changed to use the longer 76mm F-34.
And that also lead to the wierd situation that the early heavy KV tanks wich were produced earlier had a worse gun(F-32) as many T-34.
The upgunning was indeed in favour of the 85mm as it was a more proven weapon and better all suited. Again fitting their(!) design focus.
To use the 122mm over the 100mm for the IS was mostly due to the massive amount of available guns. As that was "just" a adopted field gun.
Most people oversee though the limitations very low rate of fire. This was basically an "artillery tank with rotable turrent and fine proection".
And not to forget it was designed as Infantry support that also could take on enemy tanks.
The 100 mm was developed out of a naval gun, so I doubt the HE damage would have been worse then the previous 85mm..
And it was used for tank destroyers wich main task was to destroy tanks like the Panther..
So all fine on that part..

But:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/57_mm_anti-tank_gun_M1943_(ZiS-2)

There was also a tank gun version of ZiS-2, called ZiS-4. In 1941, trying to improve the anti-tank performance of the T-34 tank, members of the Morozov Design Bureau experimentally equipped it with the ZiS-4. Only a small number of these T-34-57 tanks were built and used as tank hunters. The idea resurfaced in 1943, after Germany fielded heavily armoured Tiger and Panther tanks. Again only a limited number was produced, equipped with a slightly modified version of the gun, the ZiS-4M. Although the high-velocity gun had superior armour penetration to the F-34, the small weight of its shell meant that it could not fire an adequate high explosive round for general use. The ultimate solution for the tank was to design a new turret allowing the use of an 85-mm gun; the new model was called the T-34-85.

Oh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IS_tank#Gun_choice

Two candidate weapons were the A-19 122 mm gun and the BS-3 100 mm gun. The BS-3 had superior armour penetration (185 mm compared to 160 mm), but a less useful high explosive round. Also, the BS-3 was a relatively new weapon in short supply, while there was excess production capacity for the A-19 and its ammunition. Compared to the older F-34 76.2 mm tank gun, the A-19 delivered 3.5 times the kinetic energy and had very good armour penetration, similar to that of the effective 75 mm high velocity gun mounted on the German Panther.
After testing both BS-3 and A-19 guns, the latter was selected as the main armament of the new tank, primarily because of its ready availability and the effect of its large high-explosive shell when attacking German fortifications.

Yikes.

And I never said the 100mm had worse HE than the 85mm, I said the it had worse than the 122mm.

I'm sorry but in my opinion many of your points could be seen as unproven by now and not really researched/backed up at all.
Anybody who read my responses should be able to see that.
Let me show you in the end a summarize about the "bad design" about the Panther in this end of this post.
Somebody made quite a big lists of quotes from books about it.
As an overall information, if the Panther had been soo bad, why whould it have been used also as a rescue vehicle. That type of vehicle should be reliable at least no?

Most of your posts are a mishmash of unrelated items and phrases that make no sense. Still, it's possible that unbiased readers may be convinced by them. I don't know, but neither do you. You don't just get to post your thoughts and declare my argument torn to shreds though.

Edit: Oh, I missed this. The rescue version, the Bergepanther had to be made quite urgently because the Panther was too heavy for existing prime movers to move practically (same with the Tiger, but the Panther was meant to be made in large numbers). It was literally too fat to be saved. No one said "Wow, our Panthers run so well, let's make a rescue version!", they had to make a special Panther-tower and so used the same hull for ease of manufacturing and parts commonality.

Anyway, below the list with many quotes.
Maybe that list of quotes will change your mind.
For those who don't want to read it all, those quotes show that Panther had initial reliability problems that were overcome.
And that GER was still pleased with and capable to operate those tanks in the meantime.
The initial problems occur because of material shortage mostly. So the design had e.g. a better final drive but it was cut due to savings and shortage.
Given the difficulties GER had by that time, the tank was quite successful. M-26 Pershing / IS-2 / SU-85 /SU-100 / T-34/85/Comet etc. were direct answers to the threat the Panther was.
(Next to the TigerI, but that one was even way less often on the field due production restrictions.)

I've read it, before you linked it, and I don't agree with your summery of the page at all. It basically says the Panther was terribly unreliable at first and was kinda okish by late 44 yet still points out that half the Panthers in Normandy were lost due to final drive faults and it still had a critically short life in post-war French service.

 

[Darkrenown]

Oh please.

Adamantium then?

You mean what, that T 34 which was routinedly pierced by PAK 50mm?

This thread could be closed, it is a e-penis thread for a looooong time already and one guy argument (you know whom) can be summed up as "Germany only built crap". Thus rendering the whole "Tiger/Panther is a viable choice" point moot.

Clearly you have a reading problem, as I have never said Germany only built crap. I'm sorry you dislike taking about WWII tanks in a WWII game forum, but don't worry though! There's a solution for you: Don't read this thread.

 

[podcat]

lol. Japan actually used bicycles in their advance towards Singapore in a kind of blitz-y way.

Yeah, its basically "modern" dragoons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_infantry

 

[Darkrenown]

Of course you didn´t say anything.

Other people did, as all you do is quote authors (that suit YOUR point of view), and often fail to interpret what they said BTW. Copy paste of articles isn´t writing anything, FYI. And there is more than one person who disagrees with you here, so get off the high horse.

Gameplay wise, you run around in circles and didn´t answer the OP question. Are you honestly saying that a country that spent 1 billion dollars in Panthers/Tigers would lose to one who spent 1 billion in Shermans? Because THAT´S the point of this thread.

Not copy paste.

Oh dear, your reading problem is worse than I first thought. Firstly I am not, and have never been talking about gameplay - just historical tanks. There's no circles, I am not talking about gameplay. Secondly, I started off just stating my opinion and only started posting quotes when people called my facts into question. Since I am posting data to support myself, yes of course I am posting quotes that agree with me, it would be pretty stupid to post data that disagreed with my position when I am trying to prove my point of view. I make no claim to have fought in WWII or made original research into the raw data, so of course I quote other people.

As to your question: No, I have no idea who would win if you just smashed 1 billion dollars worth of Shermans into 1 billion dollars of Panthers/Tigers. Nor do I care, it's a stupid unrealistic example without well enough defined parameters that has no bearing on either the real world or HoI IV.

 

[Darkrenown]

You being done with me is honestly the best outcome I could hope for, if you never direct another post my way I will die a happy man

I don't care what the OP was about as I never addressed it, I only ever replied to someone about the Panther's gun and then talked about historical tanks.

 

[Darkrenown]

The real question is: will the game allow me to have several tank production lines running concurrently? So if I want to play as Germany and make pzIII and pzIV and pzV at the same time, despite how inefficient this approach may be, will I be able to?

From what we've heard about production lines so far, it seems like the answer is no. You have to decide which one to produce. If you switch, your units will begin to receive the new tank type (ie, they'll upgrade). Historically speaking however, a production line of pzIVs didn't cease because the pzV began to be produced. And the pzIII chassis was continued as well, at least to make the StugIII and perhaps other vehicles.

It'd be a shame to "have to" completely abandon a still useful production line just because there was a new piece of equipment available. Of course, the trade off is that your IC is split between two or more production lines and is perhaps not being utilized at full potential for either line.

We'll have a DD today which might enlighten you on this, if not repost this in the thread.

 

[podcat]

The real question is: will the game allow me to have several tank production lines running concurrently? So if I want to play as Germany and make pzIII and pzIV and pzV at the same time, despite how inefficient this approach may be, will I be able to?

yes

Edit: pwned darkrenown

 

[Darkrenown]

Goddamnit, Podcat!