How many panther tanks were built

While having essentially the same engine as the Tiger 1 tank, it had better frontal armor including the benefit of sloped armor, increasing the effective armor depth , superior gun penetration, was lighter and thus faster, and could traverse rough terrain better than the Tigers.

The Panther proved to be deadly in open country and long range engagements against tanks like the T, but vulnerable in close quarters combat. Designed in and deployed in , the Panther tank had a V12 engine, 7. Roughly Panthers were built between and A slow increase in the combat strength is observable. The large number of losses by hits 81 Panthers up to 10 July attests to the heavy fighting.

During Zitadelle the Panthers claimed destroyed tanks. A later report on July 20, showed 41 Panthers as operational, 85 as repairable, 16 severely damaged and needing repair in Germany, 56 burnt out due to enemy action , and 2 that had been destroyed by motor fires.

However, before the Germans ended their offensive at Kursk, the Soviets began their counteroffensive, and succeeded in pushing the Germans back into a steady retreat. Thus, a report on August 11, showed that the numbers of total writeoffs in Panthers swelled to , with only 9 operational. The German Army was forced into a fighting retreat and increasingly lost Panthers in combat as well as from abandoning and destroying damaged vehicles.

The Panther demonstrated its capacity to destroy any Soviet AFV from long distance during the Battle of Kursk, and had a very high overall kill ratio. Its greatest historical role in the battle may have been a highly negative one—its contribution to the decisions to delay the original start of Operation Zitadelle for a total of two months, time which the Soviets used to build up an enormous concentration of minefields, anti-tank guns, trenches and artillery defenses.

The numbers of Panthers were slowly re-built on the Eastern Front, and the operational percentage increased as its reliability was improved. In March , Guderian reported: "Almost all the bugs have been worked out," although many units continued to report significant mechanical problems, especially with the final drive. The highest total number of operational Panthers on the Eastern Front was achieved in September , when some were listed as operational out of a total of Throughout the rest of the war, Germany continued to keep the great majority of Panther forces on the Eastern Front, where the situation progressively worsened for the Germans.

The last recorded status, on March 15, , listed on the Eastern Front with operational. In August Panthers were deployed in Warsaw during the uprising as a mobile artillery and troops support. Most of the Germans in the camp were killed; insurgents had lost two people and liberated almost people. After several days they were immobilized due to the lack of fuel and batteries and were set ablaze to prevent them from being re-captured by the German forces.

Panther in bocage , Summer , France. At the time of the invasion of Normandy, there were initially only two Panther-equipped Panzer regiments in the Western Front, with a total of Panthers between them. From June through August , an additional seven Panther regiments were sent into France, reaching a maximum strength of in a status report dated July 30, The majority of German panzer forces in Normandy — six and a half divisions, were drawn into the fighting around the town of Caen.

Here they checked the Anglo-Canadian forces of the 21st Army Group. The numerous battles to secure the town became collectively known as the Battle of Caen. While there were sectors of heavy bocage around Caen, there were also many open fields which allowed the Panther to engage the attacking enemy armor at long range. Conversely, by the time of the Normandy Campaign, British Divisional Anti-tank Regiments were well equipped with the excellent 17 pounder gun the 17pdr also replaced the US gun on some M10 Tank Destroyers in British service , making it equally as perilous for Panthers to attack across these same fields.

The British had begun converting regular M4 Shermans to carry the 17 pounder gun nicknamed Firefly prior to the D-day landings, and while limited numbers meant that during Normandy not more than one Sherman in four were of the Firefly variant, the lethality of its gun against German armor made them priority targets for German gunners.

US forces in the meantime, facing one and a half German panzer divisions, mainly the Panzer Lehr Division, struggled in the heavy, low-lying bocage terrain west of Caen. Against the M4 Shermans of the Allied tank forces during this time, the Panther tank proved to be most effective when fighting in open country and shooting at long range—its combination of superior armor and firepower allowed it to engage at distances from which the Shermans could not respond.

Fritz Bayerlein , reported on the difficulties experienced by the Panther tank in the fighting in Normandy:. The Sherman because of its maneuverability and height was good Long gun barrel and width of tank reduce maneuverability in village and forest fighting.

It is very front-heavy and therefore quickly wears out the front final drives, made of low-grade steel. High silhouette. Very sensitive power-train requiring well-trained drivers. Weak side armor; tank top vulnerable to fighter-bombers. Fuel lines of porous material that allow gasoline fumes to escape into the tank interior causing a grave fire hazard. Absence of vision slits makes defense against close attack impossible. Through September and October, a series of new Panzerbrigades equipped with Panther tanks were sent into France to try to stop the Allied advance with counterattacks.

The Panther units were newly formed, poorly trained, and tactically disorganized; most units ended up stumbling into ambush situations against seasoned U. Burnt out Panther Ausf. G at the Battle of the Bulge , penetrated in the sponson. A status report on December 15, listed an all-time high of Panthers assigned to the Western Front, with operational 71 percent.

This was one day before the start of the Battle of the Bulge ; of the tanks assigned to the Western Front were in units sent into the offensive.

The Panther once again demonstrated its prowess in open country, where it could shoot its victims at long range with near-impunity, and its vulnerability in the close-in fighting of the small towns of the Ardennes, where they suffered heavy losses. Total write-offs were listed as The Operation Greif commando mission included five Panthers assigned to Panzerbrigade , disguised to look like M10 Tank Destroyers by welding on additional plates, applying US-style camouflage paint and markings.

The disguised Panthers were detected and destroyed. In February , eight Panzer divisions with a total of Panthers were transferred from the West to the Eastern Front. Only five Panther battalions remained in the west.

By the end of the war, he had some 80 tank kills claimed. From , Panther turrets were mounted in fixed fortifications; some were normal production models, but most were made specifically for the task, with additional roof armor to withstand artillery.

They housed ammunition storage and fighting compartment along with crew quarters. A total of of these were installed in the fortifications of the Atlantic Wall and West Wall , 48 in the Gothic Line and Hitler Line , 36 on the Eastern Front , and 2 for training and experimentation, for a total of installations by March They proved to be costly to attack, and difficult to destroy.

Panzerbefehlswagen Panther Ausf. From 3 August , the new Panzer-Division 44 organisation called for a Panzer division to consist of one Panzer regiment with two Panzer battalions — one of 96 Panzer IVs and one of 96 Panthers.

Actual strengths tended to differ, and became far lower after losses. The appearance of the Panther on the Eastern Front led to another step in the ongoing arms race between the Germans and Soviets to produce AFVs with ever greater armor and firepower.

Soviet firing tests against a captured Tiger in April showed that the T's 76 mm gun could not penetrate the front of the Tiger I at all, and the side only at very close range. An existing Soviet 85 mm antiaircraft gun, the K , was found to be very effective against the frontal armor of the Tiger I, and so a derivative of the K 85 mm gun was developed for the T The Soviets thus had already embarked on the 85 mm gun upgrade path before encountering the Panther tank at the Battle of Kursk.

After much development work, the first T tanks entered combat in March The production version of the T's new 85 mm gun proved to be ineffective against the Panther's frontal armor, meaning the Soviet tank had to flank the Panther to destroy it, while the Panther's main gun could penetrate the T at long range from any angle. New self-propelled anti-tank vehicles based on the T hull, such as the SU and SU , were also developed.

A German Army study dated October 5, showed that the Panther could easily penetrate the turret of the T from the front at ranges up to m, and the frontal hull armor at m, whereas from the front, the T could only penetrate the non-mantlet part of the Panther turret at m.

From the side, the two were nearly equivalent as both tanks could penetrate the other from long range. The Battle of Kursk convinced the Soviets of the need for even greater firepower. A Soviet analysis of the battle in August showed that a Corps artillery piece, the A mm gun , had done well against the German AFVs in that battle, and so development work on the mm equipped IS-2 began in late First encounters with hostile enemy tanks revealed that the mm BR armor piercing shell could only punch through the Panther's frontal armor at a range of — meters.

The early results of the IS-2's combat employment which were confirmed by firing tests in Kurbinka compelled the designers to seek innovate solutions.

From the side, the Panther was more vulnerable than the IS The Panther carried much more ammunition and had a faster firing cycle than the IS-2, which was a lower and more compact design; the IS-2's D25T mm gun used a two piece ammunition which slowed its firing cycle to 1.

The response of the Western Allies to the Panther was confused. The Western Allies were aware of the Panther and had access to technical details through the Soviets, but there was a difference in the American and British camps as to the significance of the tank.

After taking two years to catch up with German tank design in Africa, the British were wary of falling behind yet again. They had developed the excellent pounder anti-tank gun , but had no vehicle that could fit this large gun into its turret. For its part, the U. Army did not believe the Panther would be a significant problem, and did not foresee their armored forces having to fight pitched engagements against the Panther.

The Panther was not seen in combat by the Western Allies until early at Anzio in Italy, where Panthers were employed in small numbers. Until just before D-Day June , the Panther was thought to be another heavy tank that would not be built in large numbers. Shortly before D-Day, Allied intelligence reported that large numbers of Panthers were being used in the panzer divisions, and an attempt was made to investigate Panther production.

Using a statistical analysis of the road wheels on two captured tanks, U. Army expected to face a handful of German heavy tanks alongside large numbers of Panzer IVs. At this point it was too late to prepare to face the Panther. The British were more astute in their recognition of the danger posed by the increasing armour strength of German tanks. They discovered that by rotating the pounder anti-tank gun and slightly modifying the turret of the Sherman, the two could be combined.

They began converting their Shermans into this version, which they called the Sherman Firefly. By the time of the Normandy invasion some of these Sherman Fireflies were available to the Commonwealth armoured divisions. The British lobbied for American production lines to be modified to produce Fireflies, just as they had been modified to manufacture the American P fighter with the British Merlin engine, but these suggestions were ignored by the U.

Army, in part due to the poor performance of British tank designs in North Africa. British and Commonwealth tank units in Normandy were initially equipped at the rate of one Firefly in a troop with three Shermans or Cromwells. This ratio increased until, by the end of the war, half of the British Shermans were Fireflies.

The Comet with a gun similar to the pounder had also replaced the 75 mm gun Sherman in some British units. At the time, U.

Lesley McNair , an artilleryman by trade, who believed that tanks should concentrate on infantry support and exploitation roles, and avoid enemy tanks, leaving them to be dealt with by the tank destroyer force, which were a mix of towed anti-tank guns and lightly armored armored fighting vehicles with open top turrets with 3-inch M10 tank destroyer , 76 mm M18 Hellcat or later, 90 mm M36 tank destroyer guns.

This doctrine led to a lack of urgency in the U. As with the Soviets, the German adoption of thicker armor and the 7. Army to develop the more powerful 76 mm version of the M4 Sherman tank in April Development of a heavier tank, the M26 Pershing , was delayed mainly by McNair's insistence on "battle need" and emphasis on producing only reliable, well-tested weapons, a reflection of America's 3, mile supply line to Europe.

The recommendation of a limited proportion of tanks carrying a 90mm gun is not concurred in for the following reasons: The M4 tank has been hailed widely as the best tank of the battlefield today There can be no basis for the T26 tank other than the conception of a tank-vs. Both British and American battle experience has demonstrated that the antitank gun in suitable numbers is the master of the tank There has been no indication that the 76mm antitank gun is inadequate against German Mark VI tank.

All U. M4 Shermans that landed in Normandy in June had the 75 mm gun. The 75 mm M4 gun could not penetrate the Panther from the front at all, although it could penetrate various parts of the Panther from the side at ranges from to 2, m to 2, yd. The 76 mm gun could also not penetrate the front hull armor of the Panther, but could penetrate the Panther turret mantlet at very close range. With a tungsten core, this round could still not penetrate the Panther glacis plate, but could punch through the Panther mantlet at to 1, yd to m , instead of the usual yards for the normal 76 mm round.

However, tungsten production shortages meant that this round was always in short supply, with only a few rounds available per tank, and some M4 Sherman units never received any. Sherman tanks used a high flash powder, making it easier for German tankers to spot them. German tanks conversely used a low flash powder making it hard for Allied crews to spot them.

Collier noted:. The production of these tanks was studied closely in preparation for the cross-Channel invasion that was to be known was Operation Overlord. The American response was to produce a variant of M4 Sherman tanks with larger guns and various tank destroyers to deal with the Panther tanks, though field experience indicated that the Panther tanks' frontal armor was still difficult to penetrate.

The British fielded the modified Sherman Firefly tanks and towed pounder guns in Normandy, France against these new German tanks. However, by this time the Russians were operating more T tanks than the Germans had Panther tanks.

All of these fake tanks were destroyed by the end of the Battle of the Bulge. Sweden operated one Panther medium tank for testing proposes until Did you enjoy this article or find this article helpful? If so, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Thank you. Facebook Reddit Twitter.

RSS Feeds. Show older comments. All visitor submitted comments are opinions of those making the submissions and do not reflect views of WW2DB. We hope that visitor conversations at WW2DB will be constructive and thought-provoking. Please refrain from using strong language.

Common issues included overheated engines, connecting rod and bearing failures, and fuel leaks. Additionally, the type suffered from frequent transmission and final drive breakdowns that proved difficult to repair. As a result, all Panthers underwent rebuilds at Falkensee in April and May Subsequent upgrades to the design helped reduce or eliminate many of these issues. While initial production of the Panther was assigned to MAN, demand for the type soon overwhelmed the company's resources.

At its peak in September , 2, Panthers were operational on all fronts. Though the German government set ambitious production goals for Panther construction, these were seldom met due to Allied bombing raids repeatedly targeting key aspects of the supply chain, such as the Maybach engine plant and a number of Panther factories themselves.

After equipping Panzer Abteilung 52 the following month, increased numbers of the type were sent to frontline units early that spring. Viewed as a key element of Operation Citadel on the Eastern Front, the Germans delayed opening the Battle of Kursk until sufficient numbers of the tank were available. First seeing major combat during the fighting, the Panther initially proved ineffective due to numerous mechanical issues.

With the correction of the production-related mechanical difficulties, the Panther became highly popular with German tankers and a fearsome weapon on the battlefield. While the Panther was initially intended to only equip one tank battalion per panzer division, by June , it accounted for nearly half of German tank strength on both the eastern and western fronts. As it only appeared in small numbers, US and British commanders believed it to be a heavy tank that would not be built in large numbers.

When Allied troops landed in Normandy that June, they were shocked to find that half the German tanks in the area were Panthers. Greatly outclassing the M4 Sherman , the Panther with its high-velocity 75mm gun inflicted heavy casualties on Allied armored units and could engage at a longer range than its foes. Allied tankers soon found that their 75mm guns were incapable of penetrating the Panther's frontal armor and that flanking tactics were required.

To combat the Panther, US forces began deploying Shermans with 76mm guns, as well as the M26 Pershing heavy tank and tank destroyers carrying 90mm guns.