Comments by "Cheezymuffin" (@Cheezymuffin.) on "WELT Documentary" channel.

  1. also, the panzer 1 was mostly used as a training vehicle, but was clearly designed as a combat vehicle. The panzer 1's armor is a nickel allow, meaning it is strong and expensive. A vehicle designed for training, wouldn't have that. Keep in mind that a tank armed with only machine guns is not a dumb idea, as a machine gun is all you need against infantery (the main target) the panzer 2's main arnament according to the manuals, was the machine gun, while the 20mm gun was only added to provide a Anti-tank capability. Of course the 20mm had some HE shells, which the crew demanded more off as it was really usefull against infantery. Of course, the production of these 2 vehicles created the basis for a tank industry. The panzer 3 was not designed to be a universal tank, it was designed to take on tanks, and was only armed with a 37mm because the 50mm gun wasn't available yet. It was spposed to protect the panzer 4 against enemy armor, the panzer 4 being the support tank, taking out pilboxes and entrenched enemies. Of course, we all know the panzer 4 was upgunned to take out the russian heavy tanks, altough the need for bigger guns was first sparked by the encounter of the Char B1 and Matilda in france. This encounter also sparked the need for a propper heavy tank, which would become the tiger 1.
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  2. well the germans during ww1 didn't really respond with the A7V, of which only 20 where build. They did capture some Mark4 tanks and A few renault FT17s. But the main counter against british and french tanks the germans employed where fieldcannons (which up to that point in the war didn't have a effective role, as direct fire atillery was useless against entrenched opponents) K-bullets (putting the bullet backwards into the casing and firing it using a standart Gewer98 delivered some armor piercing capabilities) and the only weapon they specificaly build with dealing with tanks in mind was the Tank-Gewehr, which was basically a upsized, single shot Gewer98 with a pistol grip and a bipod. Which fired a much larger bullet. The first Anti-tank rifle. They also bundled handgrenades together to create impovised AT grenades. The germans actually thought that the tanks where too unreliable and too big of a target to win the war. They severly misunderstood the power of massed tank forces.
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