![]() ![]() Prior to mid-1941, the German Army was a seemingly unstoppable foe. In an ironic twist, the Panther was inducted into the French Army during the post-war years as France looked to rebuild her military might. She was, in fact, the best "overall" tank that Germany could field in any quantity - with two Panthers produced for every single Tiger heavy tank completed. Regardless, the Panther excelled as a fighting unit and was produced up until the war's end. Her overlapping road wheels wreaked havoc for Panther crews in the mud and snow of the Soviet winter. Range was limited when traversing off road and the engine service life was inherently short. Her crew rode and fought in a cramped space when compared to her contemporaries and she needed to come to a complete stop to fire her gun. While her frontal armor was excellent, her side armor was no thicker than two inches. Her mechanical reliability, at least early on, was suspect and some major issues were never fully ironed out throughout her fighting career. ![]() ![]() However, several major blemishes kept the Panther from becoming the war-winning design Hitler ultimately envisioned. The Panther's main gun was a proven commodity and could engage enemy targets at distances outside of the range of her enemies and render enemy tanks useless from thousands of yards away with extreme accuracy. In some circles, the Panther in considered the best tank of the war, surpassing the overall capabilities of even the war-winning Soviet T-34 - a tank whose appearance on the battlefield directly affected the development of the Panther herself. She brought together the perfect blend of mobility, firepower and armor protection that her to earning the fear (and respect) of enemy tankers and infantry alike throughout the latter stages of the war. Though initially mechanically unreliable at her inception, the Panther medium tank of the German Army went on to become one of the finest battle tanks in all of World War 2. ![]()
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