German tanks

He thought the Americans would never bomb oil refineries owned by American Oil Companies.

 

I personally love the Panther tank, I'm not saying it's the best German tank it's just a personal preference. I guess I'm a sucker for complex and beautifully designed machines. And the way the Panther used the sloped armor of the T34 with a larger gun is amazing, the firepower of it's 75mm gun almost matching the 88mm gun on the Tiger. AMAZING!

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/154461211...-Fabrication-of-German-Tank-Hulls-and-Turrets

Ploesti:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45900484/Ploesti-Operations-Report-1944


http://www.scribd.com/doc/13460709/Petroleum-Facilites-of-Germany-1945-100

 

Alexander dude, you just keep posting links everywhere. It might be only me, but that is annoying me. Can't you make up a sentence of your own?

 

OK no more then - goodbye.

 

Since his contributions are very authentic and oftenly informative to us, I must respect His effort .... So, Thanks and welcome ..

 

Now that I am over being called 'Dude' :
TANK LOSSES:
Generalmajor Hermann Burkhart Mueller-Hillebrand CS of 3rd Panzer Army.


http://www.scribd.com/doc/66236954/Ms-P-059-Project-47-Tank-Losses


http://www.scribd.com/doc/16183981/tigerfibel


I never use Wiki! As a very long serving infantryman Tanks were targets.

Testing German Armour - 1945 (Anti Tank) :

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675041544_tanks_German-tank-grounds_Valentine-tank_antitank-gun

 

Some of you dudes might like these:

http://ibiblio.org/pha/TD/Tank Data 1.zip
http://ibiblio.org/pha/TD/Tank Data 2.zip
http://ibiblio.org/pha/TD/Tank Data 3.zip

 

Pantherfibel:


http://www.scribd.com/doc/13868735/tank-manual-pantherfibel

Duel, 25 pounders (RA) and MKIVs - Tunisia:


http://www.criticalpast.com/video/6...erman-Mark-IV-tanks_German-88-mm-gun-position

 

Bundesarchiv, Volume I. II etc:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/50999809/Bundesarchiv-Vol-I


Bundesarchiv:

Eg: Search - 'Panzer' / Stug III etc -with dates from to, select choice:


http://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/cross-search/search/_1399983303/

 

The life of a tank:

http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t1866/16?r=0&s=3

 

The tank is always the marriage of protection, firepower and speed. So on this question i have to go for Panther. Another great vehicle in my opinion is Hetzer as quite unique example of ingenious use of outdated skoda to create something useful and deadly. Its possible that out of all german afv's the Hetzer's cost/success rate was the best.

 

That's a difficult question. The panther was in my opinion the most versatile and powerful tank. If the germans mass-produced these tanks, they would've had greater success. Of course the Tiger was powerful, but it was slow and required high maintenance.

Many stories of ex-german stories described how those Tigers got stuck in the mud in Russia.

If you're talking absolute force, then the
"Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus" is the one you're looking for.

 

The Tiger II was a masterpiece of engineering, that would have absolutely decimated the allied armor forces, had it not been plagued with many technical problems and Germany's dwindling supplies to actually make the tank. The Tiger II was a beautiful machine when it worked, but it was simply too complicated for it's time.

 

A Film Tiger VI:


https://archive.org/details/LegendeTigerPanzerPzKpfwVI

 

Actually a part of the reason why German tanks had gone bigger and bigger was due to Hitler's "Super man" idea. He likes to have big and super weapons.

Tiger II might be tough, but only a few hundreds were ever produced. Even Tiger I had only 1300 or so produced throughout the war. The complexity of them took a lot more man hours and materials to produce than lets say a Panther. They were simply overwhelmed by tens thousands of Sherman and T-34s.

I recently watched "Nazi Super Weapons" on Netflix. It even mentioned that "land cruiser" tank Hilter wanted. The designer/engineer asked Hitler "What is the purpose of this tank?". He replied "To act as mobile bunker to fill in the gap where our lines had been broken through". It wasn't realistic at all...

 

I think the Tiger II was getting on the big side of how big you can make a tank and still have it be viable. If Germany had the resources to mass produce the Tiger II, it could have dominated the armored warfare though. Mainly it is just an issue of a machine that was FAR too complex for it's time.

 

If I remember correctly, for every Tiger I the same amount of resources could be used to produce two Panther tanks.

Two Panthers are more effective and useful in the battle than a single Tiger I. The Germans were good at making highest end technologies, but it is these high end gears cost them way too much resources to produce. Their strategy in production itself actually made them worse off in the overall war effort.

 

It might have been a better idea to create panthers then, i thought panthers took somewhat the same amount of resources as a Tiger I to produce, but I guess I was wrong. It would have been much better to mass-produce panther tanks then.