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Panzer V Panther Ausf. A Command Tank (SdKfz 267) |
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With the unexpected appearance of the Soviet T-34, all existing German armored vehicle designs became obsolete literally overnight. After the initial assessment of the T-34's capabilities, Hitler ordered the development of a vehicle endowed with similar qualities: sloped armor, a high velocity gun, and excellent cross-country mobility.
Both MAN and Daimler Benz submitted design proposals; interestingly, the Daimler Benz design was a very close copy of the T-34. The MAN design, however, was the one that was selected in 1942, and thus the Panzer V Panther was born. While the Panther tank suffered many teething troubles in the aftermath of a rushed development schedule, it eventually became the best tank Germany fielded during the war, and was greatly feared by Allied tank crews.The Panther had a conventional layout, with the driver and radio operator/hull gunner in the front; a large centrally mounted turret in the hull center, and the engine at the rear. The armor was thick - 80mm on the front glacis - and was well-sloped. The suspension comprised eight pairs of large interleaved road wheels sprung on torsion bars, with an idler in the rear and front sprockets driven by a 700hp Maybach HL 230 V12 water-cooled gasoline engine (this was twice the horsepower of the Panzer IV's engine).The Panther's main armament was a long-barreled high-velocity 75mm gun that could penetrate 150mm of armor at 1,000m. Secondary armament comprised a coaxial 7.92mm machine gun, another for the hull gunner, and a third on the commander's cupola for air defense. And in a late-war innovation, a number of Ausf. G models were iftted with infrared night vision equipment.More than 6,000 Panthers were built, along with several variants: - Panther command tank (329 of these were built and fitted with extra radios)
- Artillery observation vehicle
- Bergepanther recovery vehicle
- Jagdpanther tank destroyer
The vehicle on display is a command tank version of the Panther that was sold by France (which used a number of Panthers after the war) to Sweden in 1946, and was later given as a gift to Panzer-Lehr Bataillon 93 in October 1961. It was handed over to the Panzertruppenschule in 1975.
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