Comments by "TheThirdMan" (@thethirdman225) on "Panther: The most Controversial Panzer" video.

The hard reality was the development was entirely subject to the course of the war.
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@ChocorocK Exactly. And if German was silly enough to design a tank which needed that much time to develop, then more fool them.
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@stephenphillip5656 "Wermacht could destroy them and Russia overcame superior armour with superior numbers." The old, “They only won because there were more of them” argument. You think they cheated or something? There’s an old adage in war and that is “get it done”. By whatever means necessary. More fool Germany for attacking in the first place.
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@wirelessone2986 The Tiger was of little value. First of all, because it was optimised for anti-tank warfare, it wasn't as good as it might have been for infantry support work. Secondly, because of its size and cost, there were never very many of them. As far as the Heer was concerned, the Tiger was a fat cat.
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@ReveredDead No chance. Their resources, particularly in the east, had been obliterated. Not only had they lost the vast majority of their oil, they lost access to a lot of mineral wealth in places like Morocco. Without those things, German jets were never going to be a serious threat.
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@lowtech41 Which is where all the German heavies lose out.
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"Amongst all the world's military enthusiasts, scale modelers, and gamers, German mid-war tanks outstrip their contemporaries by a bewildering amount." Rubbish. They were over built for their operational purpose because they were designed by and appealed to people who did not understand tank warfare. They were also not of a mind to listen to people like Guderian, who had to put them into combat They were nothing like what the Heer wanted in the first place. Even at the end of the war, there was still no replacement in sight for the PzKpfw IV. Warfare can never be reduced to impressiveness of specifications. These German behemoths were too demanding on support and supply chains for the results they achieved, They were a poor design for infantry support and too late for anything but the wide open plains of the Ukraine. "Across every WWII medium, they are superlative." In no way were they superlative. I would not be silly enough to call them useless but from a practical standpoint they were designed solely to destroy other tanks. That's all. That meant that the bulk of infantry support work had to be left to tanks which were simply out of date. "Is this just tall poppy syndrome, boredom and the need to pick at a scab?" Not a valid criticism and hardly a defence of your argument. Just personal attacks. "It's time to stop beating up on the Panzerwaffe, Wehrmacht, etc, and just give them their dues. Unless you're an American, then this post will have made no sense to you, as chronic Egoism blinds you to anything outside your own world. You're excused." If there's one thing I can't stand it's people who can't see reasonable criticism as anything other than an unwarranted attack. This kind of binary logic is not only inconsistent with your claim to be well-read but is arguably the greatest blight of the internet. It breeds a special kind of intolerance and invariably leads to arguments about blind faith rather than fact. And before you tell me that I'm guilty of playing the same games, you might recognise that while I have attacked your argument, I have not and will not resort to petty name calling and accusation of some kind of agenda. I don't pretend to know what you think but I'm not going to make up my own version to suit the point.
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...which at that stage of the war were hard to find.
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Do you repeat that silly line in every thread? You're comparing a medium tank with a heavy one anyway.
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@vladmartyn6246 Except that you believe these naivetes.
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@vladmartyn6246 Quality v quantity, eh? So you compare a medium tank to a heavy tank? You compare a medium tank which was intended for infantry work with a heavy tank optimised for anti-tank work? You think this explains the progress made by the Red army while the Germans - who lacked a clear plan - were condemned to a holding action? One quote from Stalin and you think you know it all. You obviously haven't ever read anything about it. Try a real book like Hill's "The Red Army in the Second World War". Your hypothesis - and that of so many others like you - will not survive the first chapter. If the idea of reading about history and strategy appeals less that reading about equipment, try Zaloga's "Armored Champion" instead.
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Then it was a poor design.
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Toxked Not necessarily. The problem was that the Germans were on a short war strategy and the Allies were in it for the duration. That meant that the Allies could spend more time developing and improving their weapons than what the Germans could. For this reason, the Germans could ill afford a really complex design like the Tiger or Panther because they placed too much strain on industry and provided less than satisfactory performance for most of their service lives. Germany needed to concentrate on designs that would fit properly into their command structure and to do this, the leadership needed to listen to the likes of Guderian. Unfortunately, in a dictatorship this is extremely unlikely to happen and the tanks the army commanders were saddled with were the concepts of people who had no understanding of infantry support and mobility warfare. They were entirely centred around fighting other tanks.
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It's all focused around the same shibboleths you see on every thread involving the Panther. Armour / range / penetration data, final drive failures, Shermans killed and the inevitable quote from Stalin about quality v quantity. You will never see reliable information about how it was used, what influence it exerted in specific battles and why. Everything in these threads is spec sheet warfare follower by the usual maxims. Bernhard makes an attempt to change this but he's swimming against the tide, unfortunately..
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Stop and think about that for a second. The Heer wanted a new infantry tank in "the 25 tonne class". This was the same class as the PzKpfw IV, which was becoming out of date. Instead they got the Panther, which was not what they wanted or needed.
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@overworlder Not intended to be patronising. I’m just trying to plant a seed. The point was that the Heer didn’t want a bigger tank. They wanted one about the same size. That has major implications for armour, gun, etc.. They never got it. The Panther was almost 20 tonnes heavier.
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@overworlder The Panther also had the wrong gun for infantry work.
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@overworlder No. the Panther was not a useful infantry tank. The tanks mobility was questionable because of its weight. The gun was too long and too heavily optimised for tank killing at the expense of other considerations. The fact that it was such a high velocity weapon works against it in the infantry role because it means the shell walls have to be thicker to take the loads, compromising the explosive capacity. Yes, it has kinetic advantages but they are not necessary for infantry support. The gun also placed a lot of strain on the turret ring because it was not properly balanced. It was also unsuitable around infantry because of the muzzle brake. Add to that the length of the barrel in tree or towns and you end up with something that might have been made to work occasionally but was less effective and more expensive than what the original specifications called for. In short, the Heer wanted an infantry tank - this is not my opinion, Guderian was pretty clear about it - and what they got was a tank optimised for tank killing, which is only about 15% of what tanks did in WWII. Read Zaloga’s “Armored Champion” for more detail. He’s not alone in this opinion.
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@overworlder In regard to your comment about not needing another tank production line, the plan was to replace the PzKpfw IV with a new design, rather than supplement it. The older tanks were more complicated to build because of the number of different panels compared with say, a T-34. The Heer also knew that the III and IV chassis were rapidly becoming obsolete. This had been the case since Barbarossa but they soldiered on with what they had. The success of the StuG III and PzKpfw IV as late as 1943 had more to do with the way the Germans used them than anything else. I agree with your comments about the Tiger: in my mind it was a colossal waste and a lost opportunity. The result of senior Nazis listening to Ferdinand Porsche instead of their field commanders.
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You leave out an important assumption Guderian is making: that tanks would continue to support the army in the same way as the PzKpfw IV. The important point of this video is that the Panther could not do this very well because it was optimised for tank destroyer work instead of infantry support.
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@Kumimono Yes but he assumes it will be a gun well suited to infantry support and not a high velocity gun for killing tanks.
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@samerulesapply9991 That's exactly what this video doesn't say.
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@austinwhite3132 A difference which makes no difference is still no difference.
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@saltymonke3682 Not even close. Those tanks are well capable of supporting infantry. This was what the Panther was supposed to do but it was optimised for killing tanks instead. That makes it almost irrelevant for its intended role. The Abrams and the Leopard 2 are good at both.
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@psychohist Yes, that’s what it became by about 1943. But the PzKpfw IV, as it was originally intended, was an infantry support tank.
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@vladmartyn6246 God, not that tired old thing again.
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@vladmartyn6246 Good grief mate, what makes you think I haven't heard all this before... hundreds of times? It proves nothing. This is as deep as it ever gets on YouTube. If it's not this it's armour/range/penetration data or claims of Tiger kills at 3 kilometres. I have read thousands of threads and none of them gets beyond that. Does anyone here actually read the references Bernhard posts? Because if you don't, you're never going to get beyond these tidbits of information that are largely valueless if your really want to understand it.
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@ReveredDead …only in the minds of people like Manstein and Guderian. Their memoirs touted their successes as their own and blamed their failures on “the three alibis”; that fool Hitler, General Winter and hordes of “Russians”. The myth of German superiority is just that. The West was, as you say, happy to spoon it down.
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How about cheaper to build and operate, more flexible in the matter of transportation and better interoprability/
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@Military History Visualized The best part of this is the conclusion that the Panther was forced to do something it wasn't designed for. Right. This was a problem caused by senior Nazis - Hitler and Speer - falling under the influence of Ferdinand Porsche. They listened more to Porsche than they did to the Army, notably Guderian. This was by no means unique to the Panther or even the German army. It was designed for a specific role but that role did not really exist in the Heer. I would like to see more about this. Unfortunately, almost everything else has already been covered. There was just a hint of the largely-untold story - what it contributed to German victories and defeats. The answer to that cannot be measured in technical details or reliability reports. A tank can make a large contribution before it breaks down or it might not even make the battlefield. To that end, the Panther might be a qualified success. Compared to other big cats, it arguably achieved more but that doesn't mean it achieved what was intended of it.
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Dreachon Yes: Guderian, a man who knew a damned sight more about it than you or I. I will take Guderian’s word over anyone’s because 1) it was Guderian who was the architect of German motorised warfare and 2) it was Guderian who knew what the Heer needed and not the Hitler/Speer/Porsche triumvirate. And I will take Guderian’s opinion over yours every time. And just as good in what role? Infantry support? No way. High velocity guns are a poor choice for infantry support because they cannot fire the variety of shot needed and because the muzzle blast makes them unsuitable for use in close proximity to troops. The shell wall was also too thick compared with other 75mm options. They were also difficult to transport and mostly unreliable compared with the PzKpfw III or IV or the StuG III. The Heer had been campaigning for a tank in the 25 tonne class and got a 45 tonne tank instead.
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Dreachon Yes, I thought that tank recognition myth would come up. Speaking of someone who deals in myths... 🤣 Seriously mate, is that the best you can do? Really? It has no bearing on his ability to run a tank army. The man wrote the book, FFS.
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Dreachon By the way, it is technical blather which is at the heart of this nonsense. People who spend their time reading technical manuals are usually the last people to be giving advice when it comes to historical context. I have never regarded the spec sheet argument as anything but the weakest of offerings. Seriously, if that’s the best you can do... All you’re doing is denying and insisting that one obscure outside observer - who doesn’t even appear in a Google search - is of more value than the point of view of one of Germany’s best generals. (In fact Bernard quotes Toeppel a few times in this video and there's nothing to disagree with). Did you really think I wouldn’t look that up? And I really don’t mind if you don’t want to spend any more time on this. Your arguments are of little value and need to be expunged anyway as a distraction and a disincentive for people to consult a bigger picture of what happened. The less of this disinformation you spread the better.
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Dreachon By the way, I’m still waiting for the “cultural Marxism” argument. 🤣
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T-34 gears were herringbone too.
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"Tech", as you call it, is not black magic nor does it exist as an independent entity. Furthermore if you look at modern designs, you will see the lessons learnt from all previous combat.
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@typxxilps "Let's ask enemies and panther crews" No, let's not. There has been too much of that already and it represents too narrow a point of view. All you get is whether or not the crews liked the tanks. You get no perspective on whether it was a useful infantry tank or whether it was able to fulfil the missions intended of it. Has anyone asked the likes of Patton? Manteuffel? Horrocks? Rokossovski? Because these people are focused on the mission, which is much, much more important.
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If... well, it didn't happen.
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Not id you read about how things worked out in real life.
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Thank you for addressing, in your final remarks, the question I have been asking for years. Where did this tank fit into Heer planning. Your answer seems to be that it didn't It was a tank optimised for tank destroyer work but was implemented as a general purpose ("medium") tank, a role for which it was largely unsuited. I have never bothered with the on-paper information because I think overall, it has been over-emphasised and frequently misused. People will continue to argue about the minutiae while overlooking the most important point: its contribution to the Heer. And that takes into account a lot more than just tank kills. So how did it fit into Heer planning? Not well. Ergo, the tank is not a failure but I think it has been overrated. I have been asking this question for literally years. Thanks for answering it.
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Long development times were something the Germans didn't need. They were on a short war strategy while the Allies were in it for the long haul.
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KuK137 Tank development would have had a net zero effect on that. These huge German tanks never comprised more than a relatively small overall percentage of the tank Force. As is usual with these discussions, everyone turns a blind eye to other things like the Hetzer, which was being built in greater numbers. Everyone also ignores the large number of obsolete and obsolescent tanks which were still in service in 1944-45. There were no tanks which could have significantly altered the course or timeframe of the war. Germany was running out of fuel. She was also running out of adequately trained personnel and there was no means of rectifying either. Meanwhile, the Red Army was growing in strength and confidence. By that stage of the war, they were already a more mobile and flexible force than the German army.
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These things are invariably dependent on how they were intended to be used versus how they were used in reality.
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