Hello, I am curious about some of the myths surrounding German armor in the Second World War. Specifically, the performance of the Panther tank. I am somewhat aware of German tanks having a sort of an undeservedly good reputation (and vice versa for their Allied counterparts), but my knowledge is very limited when it comes to this particular big cat.
Often named as one of the best tanks of the war, was the Panther really all that? I realize its frontal armor is good, and its gun had great penetration values, but at the same time it appears to have been very unreliable, too heavy, with poor side armor and a slow turret...
Despite these factors I suppose in some sort of a perfect 1 on 1 head on scenario it would still come out on top against most enemy tanks. But wars are not fought in isolated, laboratory conditions.
So my question is: is the Panther's reputation deserved? Is its overall performance in the war truly so impressive? Or is its armament outweighed by its apparently numerous drawbacks? Again, I am not particularly interested in anecdotes or isolated incidents of a single tank knocking out ten opponents, but a more general verdict.
On paper it was the best tank of the war in terms of cost to performance.
In practice it was a pain to maintain, was often cobbled together with what was available as the war dragged on, the quality of metal dove, making it more and more brittle, the engine and drive train were not entirely adequate, and the crews were often ill trained.
Depending on when and where you can see it being both the best tank in the war, or grossly expensive for what barely competes with everything else- there's situations on the books where Panthers outnumbered US armor 1.1 : 1 and they still lost.
And post war statistics found that for every 3 panthers the Germans lost the US only lost (completely lost- no fixing and new paint to get it back out there) 2 Shermans apparently.
The panther's reputation for being one of, if not the best tank of the war is deserved, but concept and execution are two different beasts entirely.
The Panther, on paper was one of the best tanks for your money designed in the war - but its actual performance in war was mixed at best. They entered the war late, with resource shortages, and were also outnumbered on both fronts. In addition, the way they were employed and countered by the Allies (the tactics involved) also result in an overall performance in the war that wasn't as good as it probably could have been.
This is a controversial point too but I'd argue that the Soviet T-34, especially the T-34/85, should take the crown as the best tank of the war because of its combination of speed, armament, armor, mass producibility (numbers count in war), etc. A lot of Soviet accomplishments were discounted in the West due to the Cold War but the T-34 was the very reason the Panther was even pushed into existence and the T-34 was on the winning side.
Whether it was the best tank of the war or not is a difficult question to answer. If you simply examine the tank itself and ignore production costs, tactics, crew training, etc then it could very well be the best.
Before the quality of German armor plate declined late in the war, the Panther's front plate was impenetrable by any Allied AT gun. The main gun of the Panther was capable of penetrating the armor of most Allied and Russian tanks before they were close enough to effectively engage the Panther. Cross country performance was excellent despite it's weight and it was capable of climbing steeper grades than most Allied tanks. Fire control and optics were also excellent.
The negatives are the Panther was expensive to build and operate. Early models suffered from engine fires and a weakened front plate due to a drivers vision portal that was deleted on later models. Even once those issues were sorted out, it took a very skilled driver to manage the tank properly and not destroy the transmission and/or damage the engine.
In a 1:1 engagement with crews being of equal ability the Panther could probably best most Allied and Russian tanks of the period and hold it's own against the rest. Does that make it the best? Maybe but then again the chances of those conditions appearing in battle are zero. One could easily argue that the T-34, which was a very capable all around performer, was better because of the sheer number that were produced. It doesn't matter much how good the Panther is if it's outnumbered 12:1 on the battlefield.