This article will examine some aspects of the combat potential of the German T-V "Panther" tanks.
About armor protection
As you know, German medium tanks during the war years received differentiated booking. On the battlefields, it quickly became clear that 30mm armor was completely inadequate, but the T-III and T-IV were relatively light vehicles: of course, it was not possible to significantly strengthen their armor in all projections. Simply put, either the improvement would become too insignificant, or the weight of the vehicle exceeded the capabilities of the engine, suspension and transmission, which would make the tank drastically lose its mobility and reliability. So the Germans found a relatively good way out - they significantly increased only the armor of the frontal projection of their tanks, as a result of which the same T-IV had a thickness of individual nose parts of the hull up to 80 mm, and the front of the turret up to 50 mm, while the sides of the hull and the turrets were covered by no more than 30 mm armor.
And the newest tank "Panther", in essence, received protection according to the same concept: the hull's forehead was protected by completely indestructible 85-mm armor, and even at rational angles of inclination (55 degrees), the thickness of the tower in the frontal projection reached 100- 110 mm, but the sides and stern were protected only by 40-45 mm armor plates.
There is no doubt that for the T-III and T-IV, such differentiation of armor was quite reasonable, and, in fact, the only way to "pull up" their protection to modern requirements, even if only partially. But how justified is the application of the same principle on the "Panther", a tank that was created already during the Great Patriotic War? In the comments to the discussion of the articles of the cycle "Why did the T-34 lose to the PzKpfw III, but beat the Tigers and Panthers?" constructors. Let's try to understand this in more detail.
A small disclaimer. It is well known that since about the summer of 1944 the quality of German tank armor for objective reasons has deteriorated sharply - to put it simply, the Germans have lost control over the deposits of raw materials necessary for its production. Of course, this immediately affected the protection of German armored vehicles, and therefore it is customary to distinguish between the armor protection of "early" and "late" "Panthers" and other tanks. So, in this article we will focus exclusively on the well-protected "racially correct" "Panthers" of the early editions, since all the statistics and research below were carried out in 1943.
So, the first question - did the Germans themselves think that the armor protection of the Panther is optimal and fully meets the current challenges? The answer will be the most negative, because already at the end of 1942, many Wehrmacht soldiers expressed doubts about the quality of its armor. And already in December 1942, the creators of the Panther, the designers of MAN, began designing a more seriously protected modification of the Panther - it was supposed to strengthen the frontal sheet from 85 to 100 mm, and the sides - from 40-45 mm to 60 mm. As a matter of fact, this is how the history of the Panther II began, because initially under this name it was supposed to produce practically the same Panther, but with enhanced armor, and only later did they decide to strengthen the tank's armament as well. And before that, it was assumed that the Panther II with the same cannon, but with improved armor, would go into production as soon as it was ready, replacing the Panther ausf. D.
The second question: to what extent did the armor protection of the German "cat" correspond to the level of the Red Army anti-tank defense system in 1943? Let's not forget that the power of a PTO consists of many components, the main of which are the quality of the material part and the combat skill of the soldiers and officers serving it. So let's start with combat skill. How can it be expressed?
The Red Army knew very well that the Panthers had almost the ultimate protection of the frontal projection, but relatively weak sides. Therefore, the main indicator of the professionalism of our troops is precisely the ability of anti-tank crews to choose a position, etc., in order to hit the Panthers in relatively vulnerable sides and stern.
About the defeat of "Panthers"
The most interesting data on this topic was presented by the respected M. Kolomiets in the book "Heavy Tank" Panther "". In 1943, German troops launched a very strong counterattack near Oboyan, as a result of which our troops of the Voronezh Front had to conduct fierce defensive battles. And when the guns died down, a group of highly qualified officers from the GBTU KA scientific testing armored range arrived at the breakthrough section along the Belgorod-Oboyan highway (30 by 35 km). Their goal was to study and analyze the damage to the tanks "Panther", knocked out during defensive battles.
In total, 31 wrecked tanks were examined. Of these, 4 tanks were out of order for technical reasons, one more got stuck in a trench, three were blown up by mines, and one was destroyed by a direct hit from an aerial bomb. Accordingly, tank and anti-tank artillery destroyed 22 Panthers.
In total, these 22 "Panthers" hit 58 Soviet shells. Of these, 10 hit the frontal armor of the hull, and all ricocheted - not a single tank failed from such hits. The tower was hit by 16 shells, a number of them gave through penetrations, but the commission considered only 4 "Panthers" to be disabled from damage to the towers. But on the sides there was a maximum of hits - as many as 24, they were the reason for the failure of 13 German tanks. Our anti-tank crews managed to slam 7 shells into the stern of the "Panther", which knocked out 5 more tanks, and one last hit pierced the barrel of a gun on one of them.
Thus, it turns out that of the total number of shells hitting the German tanks 41, 4% fell on the sides of the "Panther". And here an interesting question arises. The fact is that according to the report of the Central Research Institute No. 48, drawn up in 1942 on the basis of a survey of 154 T-34 tanks with the defeat of their armor protection, 50.5% of the total number of shells that fell into these tanks fell into their sides.
In the comments to the articles of this cycle, it was repeatedly mentioned that this result is a consequence of the excellent training of the German anti-tank crews, combined with the poor visibility of the "thirty-fours" of 1942 and earlier years of production, as well as the weakness of the tactical training of Soviet tank crews. But now let's take the first-class trained German crews and "Panthers", the visibility of which seems to be beyond praise. And what will we see? Of the total number of hits:
1. The frontal part of the "Panther" hull accounted for 17.2%, and for the T-34 - 22.65%. That is, in the most well-protected part of the corps, German anti-tank crews in 1942 hit more often than their Soviet counterparts in 1943.
2. The Panther turret accounted for almost 27.6%, and the T-34 turret - 19.4%.
3. The sides of the Panther's hull accounted for 41.4% of all hits, and the sides of the T-34 - 50.5%.
That is, in both cases, we see that for one shell that hit the frontal part of the hull, there were 2-2.4 shells that hit the sides of the tanks - and, moreover, this value tends to 2, 4 precisely for "Panthers".
Of the total number of "Panthers" hit by artillery fire, 59% were hit on the sides. For the T-34 that participated in the Stalingrad operation, this figure was 63.9%, and in the Berlin operation - 60.5%. That is, again, the numbers are close.
Of course, one cannot draw too far-reaching conclusions on the basis of these statistics. Still, 31 knocked out "Panthers" are not a very representative sample, and, again, the Germans lost their tanks during an offensive operation, and part of the T-34 could be knocked out during defensive operations. But in general, the similarity of the above figures indicates that the designers of a tank intended for use in the offensive and for breaking through enemy defenses cannot ignore the protection of the lateral projections of their offspring. And the massive destruction of tanks on board is the norm for combined arms combat, and by no means a consequence of the tactical illiteracy of tank crews.
On the sufficiency of on-board protection
So it turns out that the Soviet all-in-45-style round-trip booking approach was more correct? Of course not: primarily because, in fact, the frontal projection of Soviet tanks was usually protected better than the sides - just the difference between their protection was less pronounced than that of German armored vehicles.
So, for example, if we look at the T-34 mod. 1940 g,
Then we will see that the body in the frontal projection is 45 mm, but they are located at an angle of 60 degrees. for the upper part and 53 deg. for the bottom, but the sides have either 40 mm at an angle of 40 degrees., or 45 mm, located strictly vertically, that is, at an angle of 0 degrees. And the subsequent thickening of the sides to 45 mm, although it strengthened their protection, but still not at all to the level of the frontal projection. The same was characteristic of the KV-1 - both the forehead and the sides were protected by 75 mm armor, but the frontal parts were located at an angle of 25-30 degrees (and even 70 degrees, but there it had "only" 60 mm), but the side 75 mm armor plates were installed vertically.
Thus, without a doubt, the frontal projection of any tank should be protected better than onboard, but where to find the right ratio of protection strength? If you take heavy tanks as an example, then you should pay attention to the German "Tiger" and the domestic IS-2. Their sides were protected by 80-90 mm armor (in the IS-2 it reached 120 mm), placed at a low slope or even vertically. Armored plates of a similar thickness, and even located at an angle of 0 or close to this, could not protect the tank from specialized anti-tank artillery like the ZiS-2 or Pak 40, but perfectly protected against the armor-piercing shells of field artillery guns. And this, perhaps, is the reasonable maximum that can be required from the side armor of a heavy tank of the Second World War era. As for the middle one, its sides should be protected from high-explosive fragmentation shells of field artillery and armor-piercing shells of small-caliber anti-tank guns.
Of course, all of the above does not mean that medium tanks cannot be used to break through enemy defenses, but you need to understand that their relatively weak defense will lead to significantly greater losses than if heavy tanks did the same. But, on the other hand, a medium tank should be much cheaper and more technologically advanced than a heavy one, and produced in much larger series, so that in relation to their total number, the losses will not be so high. But the "Panther" "managed" to combine the mass of a heavy tank with the protection of a medium one, so when breaking through the enemy's defenses, the "Panthers" were doomed to suffer significantly higher losses than classic heavy tanks like the IS-2 or "Tiger". Moreover, these losses could not be compensated for by large volumes of output.
About Soviet anti-tank crews
Let us now look at the material part of the Soviet VET. No, the author is not going to repeat the performance characteristics of Soviet guns used as anti-tank guns for the umpteenth time. For the analysis, we will use such an integral indicator as the average number of hits required to disable a tank.
So in 1942, according to the analysis of the Central Research Institute 48, our 154 destroyed "thirty-fours" received 534 hits, or 3, 46 shells per tank. But in some operations this value could have been greater: for example, during the Battle of Stalingrad, when the level of protection of the T-34 already barely corresponded to the term "anti-cannon", to disable the "thirty-four" required an average of 4, 9 shells. It is clear that some T-34s knocked out from the first hit, and some survived 17, but on average it turned out something like the above.
However, in 1944-45, when the T-34's reservation could no longer be considered anti-cannon-proof, 1, 5-1, 8 rounds were enough to disable one T-34 - the German anti-tank artillery was seriously strengthened. At the same time, in the example we have discussed above, 58 shells were enough to disable 22 Panthers, or 2, 63 shells per tank. In other words, the status of the Panther's armor is obviously "stuck" somewhere in the middle between "bulletproof" and "anti-cannonball".
But maybe the fact is that the Hitlerite "menagerie" near Oboyan was destroyed by large-caliber self-propelled guns - "St. John's hunters"? Not at all. Of the 22 "Panthers", four were destroyed by hits from 85-mm shells, and the rest of the 18 had 76-mm and (attention!) 45-mm armor-piercing shells!
Moreover, the latter worked surprisingly well: for example, 45-mm caliber armor-piercing shells confidently penetrated the side and rear plate of the Panther turret, the mask of its cannon (on the side), in one case the upper side armor was pierced. Of the 7 45-mm caliber shells that hit the Panther, 6 pierced the armor, and the seventh destroyed the barrel of the cannon. Surprisingly, it is a fact - the only 45-mm sub-caliber projectile managed to pierce the 100 mm armor of the Panther turret!
As a matter of fact, all these calculations are still nonsense. We talk a lot about the fact that the Wehrmacht was armed with first-class anti-tank guns, and the Soviet soldiers had for the most part to be content with "forty-five", and 76, 2-mm universal ZiS-3, which, with all their many advantages, were significantly inferior in tabular armor penetration German Pak 40, not to mention the "monsters" KwK 42 and so on. This is compounded by problems with the quality of Soviet armor-piercing shells, the presence of which cannot be denied. It is also certain that the Panther, for all its shortcomings in frontal projection, was radically superior to the T-34 in defense.
But despite such an obvious advantage, the above statistics show that, on average, German tank and anti-tank crews had to hit it once or twice in order to knock out a T-34, while Soviet soldiers had to hit the Panther two or three times. There is, of course, a difference, but given that the Panther could under no circumstances be as massive a tank as the T-34, should it be considered that much? And would it be correct to say that the domestic PTO was head and shoulders above the German one, as many are doing now?
About ergonomics
Generally speaking, the comfort of the "places of work" of the crews of German tanks today is considered something beyond doubt, she, like Caesar's wife, is above all suspicion. It is all the more fun to read, for example, such a remark about the "Panther", attached to the report of G. Guderian:
“After the third shot, the sight could not be used due to excessive smoke from the turret, which caused tearing. Observation periscope required!"
Probably, in the future, this problem was somehow solved, but when and how - the author, unfortunately, does not know.
And again - about irrecoverable losses
In previous articles, the author spoke about the German military paradox - with very modest irrecoverable losses, German tank units had a huge amount of military equipment in repair and scanty - in combat readiness. The situation with the "Panthers" perfectly illustrates this thesis.
Take the 39th Panzer Regiment, which at the beginning of Operation Citadel (July 5) had 200 Panthers. After 5 days, that is, July 10, the irrecoverable losses amounted to 31 vehicles, or just some 15, 5% of the original number. It would seem that the regiment has practically not lost its combat potential … But no: only 38 Panthers are combat-ready, that is, 19% of the original strength! The rest - 131 tanks - are under repair.
Technical reliability
A very interesting table compiled by M. Kolomiets on the state of the tank fleet of the division "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" in December 1943.
The figures, I must say, are simply catastrophic in literally all parameters. Let's start with the fact that formally a division can be considered quite combat-ready - the listed number of tanks ranges from 167 to 187 units. But the number of combat-ready tanks ranges from 13 to 66 units, that is, on average, it is even less than 24% of the total number.
From the point of view of combat losses, one would expect that the most well-protected and heavily armed armored vehicles in battles would be better preserved - simply due to their combat qualities, which increase their survivability on the battlefield. However, with German tanks, everything happened exactly the opposite: the number of combat-ready "Tigers", the strongest and most well-armored tanks of the division, does not exceed 14% of their total number. For the Panthers following them, this figure is only 17%, but for the relatively weak “fours” it reaches 30%.
One could, of course, try to blame everything on the unpreparedness of the crews, but this took place at the Kursk Bulge, and we are talking, firstly, about the end of 1943, and secondly, about a completely elite formation, which was Leibstandarte Adolf Gitler". You can also recall the "childhood diseases" of the "Panzerwaffe cats", but even then we must not forget that the "Panthers" went into production since February 1943, and in the yard, excuse me, December, that is, almost a year has passed … It's really inconvenient to talk about the childhood diseases of the "Tigers".
In general, the above figures irrefutably testify that the miracle tank did not come out of the Panther, and that in 1943 this vehicle did not differ in either ultimatum protection or technical reliability. The Germans themselves believed that the "Panther" became fully operational from about February 1944 - this is evidenced by Guderian's report of March 4, 1944, compiled by him on the basis of reports from combat units. Probably, "Panthers", produced in the period January-May 1944, and there were 1,468 units. became the best of all the "Panthers" of the Wehrmacht. But then Germany was forced to worsen the quality of the armor of its tanks, and the brief dawn gave way to sunset.
In fact, after February 1944, the crews of the Panther suffered from a number of technical shortcomings of this tank, but we will talk about them later when we compare the Panther with the T-34-85 …
