A German Cat in King George's Court

Study of the enemy’s new weapons or vehicles is always one of the army’s highest priority objectives. The appearance of the Panther tank on the battlefields of WWII could not have gone unnoticed without the Allies’ knowledge, and the British were no exception. Information on this new tank was gathered in several stages.

Foreign sources

Rumours about a new German tank began to arrive in the UK in the summer of 1943. The British military attache in the USSR sent a translation of an article published in the Red Star newspaper on July 24th, 1943, describing the use of a new German tank called “Panterra”. There was little information on this tank, plus the author continuously mixed up the Panther and Ferdinand. More accurate information only arrived on September 7th. With hindsight, we can see that the 45 ton “German Heavy Tank, Mark V” armed with a 75 mm gun and equipped with eight interleaved road wheels per side is indeed the Panther.

These same characteristics were later published in the American Tactical & Technical Trends magazine, with one important distinction: the tank was now called a medium tank, a halfway point between the 22 ton Panzer IV and 57 ton Tiger. Despite the weight difference, the Americans considered this 45 ton tank to be an analogue of their own Sherman, which according to American sources was highly regarded by the Germans.

One of the first images of the Panther tank widely distributed among the Allies

Video: Hunting Tigers, North Africa 1943

The Tiger was undoubtedly at the height of its power in early 1943, but could it still be defeated? I take a look at British weapons available at the time in North Africa and how effective they were against this new enemy.

Lend Lease Review

"June 19th, 1945

Report on use of tanks in combat by the 8th Guards Molodecheno Order of the Red Banner Mechanized Brigade in the Patriotic War

In combat during 1943, the 44th Guards Tank Regiment, a part of the 8th Guards Molodecheno Order of the Red Banner Mechanized Brigade, was armed with T-34 tanks that had a 76 mm gun and T-70 tanks that had a 45 mm gun. Later it did not use these types of tanks.

In combat during 1944-1945 the regiment used mainly M4A2 tanks with the 75 mm gun and partially with the 76 mm gun.

As a result, the summary of combat experience in 1944-1945 will focus on foreign M4A2 tanks.

None More Frightening than the Cat

German industry created three armoured vehicles during WWII that had a significant effect on tank building worldwide. The appearance of the Tiger made Allied tanks obsolete. The few Ferdinand SPGs that were built introduced serious changes into the Soviet tank program. The third tank was the Panther, and its influence was comparable to that of the Tiger.

The tank was a quite unpleasant surprise for the Red Army and its allies when it made its debut at Kursk. Despite its deficiencies, the Panther is a good candidate for the best German tank of the war. The Panther was superior to the Tiger in terms of armament and frontal protection, and was made in significantly higher numbers. Many tank designers were looking at the Panther when they were making the next generation of medium and heavy tanks.

Long Barrel for Infantry Tanks

At the moment of its debut in 1940, the Infantry Tank Mk.III, later known as Valentine, was the most balanced vehicle in the British army. Its low top speed was compensated by a rather respectable average speed, especially off-road. 60 mm of armour was very good for the time, and even in 1942 not every gun was capable of penetrating this much armour.

Of course, by 1942 the tank was becoming obsolete. While there was no hope of increasing mobility, there was a chance to improve the firepower. Heroic efforts by Vickers-Armstrongs engineers resulted in a significant increase in caliber, while the tank's mass remained unchanged. As a result, the Valentine fought until the end of the war. Individual vehicles even saw victory on German territory.

Heavy Trophy from the Kursk Salient

The relatively rare German heavy Panzerjäger Tiger (P) SPG, more commonly known as the Ferdinand, left a noticeable mark in history and in Soviet tank building. The name "Ferdinand" itself became denominative: Ferdinands were spotted on all parts of the front until the end of the war. In practice, only 91 vehicles were built, and the Ferdinand was only used en masse in the summer of 1943, during Operation Citadel at the Battle of Kursk. The Germans lost more than a third of these vehicles there.

Despite the fact that the Ferdinands (as well as the Elefant) were used very sparingly, they showed themselves as effective anti-tank guns. The Red Army command treated the child of Porsche K.G. and Alkett seriously. The appearance of the Ferdinand on the front lines reflected itself in the development of Soviet tanks, tank guns, and SPGs.

Heavy Trophy

The German heavy Tiger tank left a mark on tank building worldwide. Even though propaganda and memoirs are largely to blame for its fame, the Tiger did really have nearly no competition on the battlefield among the tanks of the Allies. It's not surprising that the tank was thoroughly studied in the USSR, USA, and Great Britain. This article tells the story of how Tiger tanks were studied in the USSR and what conclusions were made, as well as the use of these tanks in the Red Army.

Panther Armour Quality

Long-time readers of this blog are no doubt already aware of the poor performance of German armour in British and Soviet trials, but you can never have too much evidence. Here's another log for the fire.

"(a) 17 Pr v Glacis

Gun performance is appreciably better than forecast and it must be therefore be concluded that German plate is not up to the standard of our Homogeneous M.Q. tank armour.

In point of fact the German plate appears far too brittle and large cracks develop from any penetration. These became so bad during the course of the trial that whole sections fell away and it was difficult to find a target in the later stages.

This fault is not confined to this particular plate as the tank used as a target had been knocked out by penetration of the turret side, by 75 mm AP, and from here the cracks had developed to the side of the plate."

Mediterranean Area A.F.V. Technical Report No. 23 - Part II Enemy Equipment - Panther

14th September 1944

British Guns vs. Big Cats

The effects of "big cats" being shot up by large caliber Soviet shells are well known, but naturally every other Allied nation was willing to have a go themselves. Three British reports surfaced on Google Photos with just that. Unfortunately, they don't test as many tank guns as the Soviets do, settling for only the 6-pdr, 17-pdr, and occasionally the M3 75 mm gun on the Sherman, but they also test ground attack aircraft autocannons, 7.7 mm bullets, 25-pdr HE shells, and the humble PIAT. Despite the smaller caliber of the weapons, the German armour spalls, splinters, and shatters almost as well as during the Soviet trials. The conclusions are, well, predictable.

Go ahead and flip through them to see the power of Britain's rather underrated guns in action. Unfortunately, conclusions made about the Tiger II are based on calculations only.

Panther

Tiger

Tiger II

Penetration, Part 9: Milsurp Edition

As a result of Lend-Lease, a large number of American guns and vehicles ended up in the hands of whoever was willing to fight the Axis. After the war ended and allegiances shifted, a lot of those nations ended up hostile to their former suppliers. Naturally, the US already had data on all of these weapons, and compiled it into a convenient table.

PAM 30-60-1 Vol. 3 Pt. 1 (composite image from several pages)

The first is the M1 76 mm gun, still in the service with the Yugoslavian army in Sherman tanks as of this document's composition. According to the document, the muzzle brake was not used. 

The second gun is the 90 mm M36 gun from the M47 Patton tank, also operated by Yugoslavian forces. 

The 37 mm M6 gun was used on many vehicles, but the vehicle in question is the M8 Greyhound armoured car. The document mentions that it "has but a limited performance against modern tanks". Indeed, 50 mm isn't going to impress anyone in this day and age.

Just like the "S" versions of Soviet guns, the M1A1C is just the same 76 mm gun as seen earlier in the table, but mounted in a Hellcat. Unlike the Sherman variant of the weapon, the muzzle brake is still used here. 

The 90 mm M3 was used on the M36 tank destroyer. The document points out that this gun cannot use 90 mm ammunition from the M36 gun, although the opposite is possible. Again, the muzzle brake has been removed in Yugoslavian service.

Last but not least is the 105 mm M2A1 howitzer, used both as towed artillery or a part of the M7 Priest. 

More Ferdinand Penetration Tests

You may recall two previous article where the Ferdinand's armour was tested: against the 152 mm ML-20 and 122 mm D-25. Today, thanks to Yuri Bakhurin, I bring you the results of the rest of the test.

First, we have the 45 mm gun. Naturally, it can't do anything to the Ferdinand's thick side. AP shells shatter when hitting the armour, cores from APCR shells sink into the armour without penetrating.

Next, the 6-pounder from the Churchill. Penetration is achieved at ranges of 300 meters, but firing from 500 meters yields little results. Shells either get stuck in the armour or shatter.

Now, the Sherman's turn. M-72 shells from the 75 mm gun cannot penetrate the side or rear armour. The M-61 shell fares better, penetrating the side at 500 meters.

Next, the Soviet 85 mm gun. These shells are easily able to pierce the side of a Ferdinand, causing spalling on the inside.

The proving grounds also had a Panther, and decided to see if it could take on a Ferdinand. Turns out, it could. The vertical front armour can be penetrated by the Panther's gun.

The front of the casemate, however, proved too tough of a challenge. The shells made 170-180 mm dents and could not penetrate all the way,.

75 mm APCR can penetrate even this tough armour.

Penetration through the side. Note the jagged outline of the hole, caused by spalling.

Spalling damage from the inside. The large hole is from an AP penetration, the small hole is from APCR penetration.

The Ferdinand had a chance to take revenge on the Panther. The 88 mm shell ricocheted, but led to a breach and spalling in a 300 mm by 250 mm area.

The results of these trials were used to compose this guide on fighting the Ferdinand.

American Guns vs German Tanks

The 1942 "Report on the shooting of German tanks with AP and HE shells from tank guns" contains testing of American guns against captured German tanks: the 37 mm M5 tank guns on the Lee and Stuart, and the 75 mm M3 gun on the Lee.

The first test subject is the Czech LT vz 38, also known as Pz 38(t). The first tank to shoot at it is the M3 Stuart, firing M-51 shells out of its 37 mm gun.

The first target is the front armour plate. At 50 and 100 meters, only one shell out of 5 fails to penetrate. Holes made in the armour are noticeably larger than the shell caliber (70-80 mm in one dimension). Next target is the turret platform. One shot at 400 meters, and one shot at 600, both penetrate. Next is the side of the turret, at 800 meters. Again, all penetrations. The second shot to the right side of the turret caused a crack 140 mm long. The final shot is at the front of the tank, at 100 meters. It strikes the MG, and knocks it out. 

Conclusions: "Front armour, 50 mm thick can be penetrated starting at 100 meters. Sides of the tank, 30 mm  thick, can be penetrated at 800-1000 meters."

Regrettably, the photo quality isn't fantastic, but you can see that, in the top photo, the MG ball was knocked out. The second photo shows the shells extracted from the tank. Like all American shells, they mostly retain their shape, even after penetrating armour. 

That's it for the vz 38. The armour plates are overly hardened, as we've seen on the mid-late war German vehicles. This causes the plates to crack, spall, and fall off.

Next up for testing is the StuG. The 37 mm American gun, once again, gets first dibs.

Shots at 100 meters at the front plate. All 3 go through, one shot damaging the braking mechanism. The Germans' early war armour is ductile, giving breaches not much larger than 37 mm in diameter. The next three shots are fired from 150 meters. All fail to penetrate the armour, making dents. Another shot is fired at the side, from 800 meters, penetrating the gas tank. 

The top photo shows the StuG after taking a penetrating hit from the side. The bottom photo shows the shells. Shells marked 1 were the ones that penetrated the hull. The shell marked 2 was one of the shells fired from 150 meters that did not penetrate.

It's the Lee's turn next, firing HE shells from its 75 mm gun. 

The first shot, from a distance of 800 meters, hits the front armour. The 50 mm thick plate shows no signs of damage. The 30 mm thick cover of the transmission is dented 8 mm down, and the welding seam suffers a rupture 80 cm in length. The right half of the transmission hatch is torn off. Subsequent shots are fired at the side of the StuG.

The second shot, also at 800 meters, hits a wheel, damaging it. A second shot tears off the rubber tire. Even after two direct hits, the wheel is still functional. A shot to the side leaves a negligible mark on the armour and damages the gas mask holder on the inside. A torsion bar carrier is torn off. 

Closing in to 600 meters, the Lee shoots at the radio bay. The armour plate is bent inwards 8 mm. A crack forms along the welding seam, 1.5 meters in length.   

Further shots from 600, 500, and 400 meters keep slightly bending the armour, damage 3 track links, and a roller. 

Conclusion: "The 75 mm HE shell from the M-3 Medium tank does not penetrate or destroy a StuG from 800, 600, or 400 meters."

This is it for American guns in this report. Here are the applicable conclusions:

"The 37 mm American shell, after penetrating 50 mm or armour at 100 meters, shatters into 3-5 fragments. The tip of the shell is usually intact. At 150 meters, the shell usually makes a dent 40-50 mm in a 50 mm armour plate and breaks into 3-5 fragments.

...

Scattering of shells from the 37 mm and 40 mm guns does not exceed the size of a StuG at 800 meters.

...

Of all the gun sights tested, the American gun sight on the M3 Light and M3 Medium led to the worst accuracy.  

...

Of all low caliber shells, the American 37 mm shell is of the highest quality, and provides the most penetration. "

Another report also tests the Sherman's gun against the Tiger, which I covered earlier.

The American M1A1 76 mm gun, mounted on an M18 Hellcat (serving in the Red Army under the name T-70 Ved'ma, or Witch) was tested against a Tiger II. Firing M-62 APC shells, it achieves the following results: 

"The armour piercing shell of the American 76 mm gun penetrates:

• The side of the hull at 2000 meters.
• The overtrack hull at 1500 meters.
• The turret side from 1500 meters."

Sherman vs Tiger

I have talked at some length about how Soviet guns were perfectly capable of dealing with German armour, so let's talk about the Americans for a bit. In popular history, the Tiger effortlessly cleaves through dozens of Sherman tanks at a time. Let's see what happens when the Sherman's gun is pitted against the Tiger's armour in a more rigorous test than hearsay and memoirs.

CAMD RF 38-11377-12

This test was performed firing a 75 mm M3 gun from an M4A2 Sherman with M-61 and M-72 rounds. Here are the results:

Side, shell type M-61, distance 400 m. Result: penetration, spalling inside in an area of 300 mm by 300 mm
Side, shell type M-72, distance 625 m. Result: penetration, minor spalling on entrance and exit.
Side: shell type M-72, distance 625 m. Result: same as above.
Turret: shell type M-61, distance 650 m. Result: dent 50 mm deep, 140 mm diameter. Penetration of the turret platform.
Turret: shell type M-61, distance 650. Result: dent 40mm deep, 120mm diameter.
Side: shell type M-61, distance 650. Result: Penetration. Shell knocked out a cork-like section of armour.
Side: shell type M-61, distance 650. Result: same as above.

The photo for this particular test is missing, but here's the Tiger after the other tests.

CAMD RF 38-11377-12

As you can see, the Allies' guns in general, and the Sherman's gun in particular, were very capable of dealing with the Tiger in 1943. The more observant of you will notice that the turret is no longer on top of the turret ring. This was a common side effect for German tanks that were being shot at by Soviet 122 mm and 152 mm caliber guns. 

Penetration

If you read the World of Tanks forums, odds are you've seen this penetration table. Overlord even talked about it on his blog. For those unfamiliar with it, let me give you a quick translation. 

The column on the left is distance to target in meters. The first row lists the guns: "45 mm tank gun model 1938 on tank T-70", "57 mm gun ZiS-4 on tank T-34", "76 mm gun F-34 on tank T-34 and ZiS-3 on SU-76", "85 mm gun D-5 on SPG SU-85 and S-53 on tank T-34-85", "85 mm gun of increased power, experimental", "100 mm gun on SPG SU-100", "122 mm gun D-25 on tank IS and SPG ISU-122", "152 mm howitzer on SPG ISU-152" (ML-20), "122 mm gun of increased power OBM-50, experimental" (BL-9), "152 mm gun of increased power OBM-53, experimental" (BL-8, BL-10), "57 mm English gun" (6 pounder), "75 mm American gun on tank M3 Lee" (M2 tank gun), "50 mm gun Model 1938 on tank PzIII", "75 mm gun Model 1940 on tank PzIV", "75 mm gun Model 1942 on tank Panther", "88 mm gun on tank Tiger", "88 mm gun on SPG Ferdinand". 

The V0 value indicates the muzzle velocity of the shell. Under each gun name, there are two columns: one for an armour plate angled at 60 degrees from horizontal and one for an armour plate angled 90 degrees from horizontal. When two values are shown in one box, the numerator is the performance of a caliber AP shell, the denominator is the performance of a subcaliber AP shell. 

CAMD RF 81-12038-303

If you've seen it before, you also have heard criticism aimed its way. "Propaganda!" some people cry. "The 8.8L/71 penetrated 203 mm at 100 meters, not 168! This document is not to be trusted!"

They are wrong about the propaganda bit, as this was a classified internal document, used by engineers to analyze the required armour and firepower for future tanks. It would be pretty foolish to falsify these numbers. Besides, a dense table of data isn't exactly the best for propaganda material.

However, the 8.8L/71 did penetrate 203 mm of armour... when the Germans tested it. German penetration testing standards were different from the Soviets'. German penetration tests were performed with specially selected shells, against armour angled at 30 degrees. If a shell could penetrate the effective armour thickness 50% of the time (several times in a row, depending on the shell caliber), that penetration is recorded as how much that shell can penetrate.

Obviously, the Soviets didn't get courtesy shipments of special testing ammo, so they used whatever was captured along with German tanks. Therefore, these tests give a better indication of how a tank would perform on the battlefield. The Soviets had two penetration standards. When only one penetration value is shown, 75% of the shell fragments end up behind the armour plate. When two penetration values are shown, the two values are for 20% penetration (possible penetration) and 80% penetration (guaranteed penetration). So, as you can see, according to this data, while the 8.8L/71 could penetrate 203 mm of armour using special shells with 50% probability, it could only penetrate 168 mm using regular shells with 75% probability.

This document is very interesting, because it brings together most common guns of WWII (regrettably, some interesting ones are missing, like the 17 pounder or the Sherman's 76 mm gun) under the same testing conditions. This makes the comparison between the various guns much easier than having to pick through various sources, and then tring to figure out all the different test conditions.

Now, time to do some comparisons! You may have read a lot about the unprecedentedly devastating power of the Tiger's gun. However, it penetrates 120 mm at most. This is definitely high for WWII, but similar performance is reached by the Soviet 57mm ZiS-4, that was mounted on some T-34s since 1941, as well as the 85mm guns from the SU-85 and T-34-85. With APCR, even the ordinary T-34's 76 mm gun surpasses the Tiger in penetration (albeit at the expense of accuracy).

The Tiger's successor, the Tiger II, reaches better results with the 8.8L/71 gun, 168 mm. However, the D-25 gun on the IS-2 (which I compared to the 88 mm guns before) achieves nearly as much penetration, and the D-10T gun on the SU-100 (also tested on the T-34-85) surpasses it.

The Panther's long 75 mm gun also has very good penetration, and is comparable to the experimental 85 mm gun. Of course, the experimental OBM-50 and OBM-53 surpass all other guns on this table with huge penetrations of 230 mm and 244 mm, respectively. This would have been enough to take out a Maus tank, if Germany had ever sent any into battle.

In conclusion, the myth of superior German tank guns is, yet again, proven false.

See more penetration values in Penetration, part 2.