The heavy Panthers and Tigers are the best known of Germany's tanks. The lion's share of discussions of armoured vehicles in the Second World War is dedicated to them, even though lighter tanks carried the Panzerwaffe through the majority of the war. The Pz.Kpfw.III tank proved itself to be a worthy opponent in the first half of the war. At the same time, it remained a mystery for the British for a number of years until the first trophies began arriving from North Africa in 1941-42. This is what the British learned from these studies.

Third time's the charm

The Pz.Kpfw.III medium tank was posed as Germany's main tank from the early days of the Nazis' reign, but development was slow. Only 120 tanks were in the field by the start of the Second World War and 381 by the beginning of the Battle of France. Serious losses among them prove that they were actively used and the British Expeditionary Force couldn't have avoided meeting them on the battlefield. However, even if a tank of this type was captured there was no opportunity to study it or send it back to Britain. The speed of the German offensive forced the British to abandon even their own tanks on the continent.

A column of Pz.Kpfw.III tanks in France prepares to move out. The British did not gather any detailed information on these vehicles in 1940.

How the Pz.Kpfw.IV became Germany's most numerous and longest serving tank.

There are many cases in worldwide tank building where not everything went according to plan. Even the legendary T-34 was supposed to leave the stage in 1941 in favour of the T-34M. Only the start of the war saved it from replacement. A similar thing happened to the Medium Tank M4. It was supposed to be replaced in 1943, but the replacements didn't turn out well. This happened to every long-serving tank, and the Germans were no exception.

The Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.C was the most common German medium tank at the start of the war.

Winter is a difficult time for any kind of vehicle, including tanks. Since the Russian winter is long, the USSR paid a lot of attention to how tanks put up with it. This applied in full to mobility in winter. Driving through deep snow banks was a mandatory part of testing every armoured vehicle starting with the MS-1. The MS-1 showed insufficient traction in snow, which is a part of the reason why the "Eagle's Claw" track was introduced. Winter tests of the Vickers Mk.E tank in the USSR were also a key factor in accepting the tank into production. 

T-34 tanks were often the only Soviet tanks that could move outside of roads in winter.

Trials of foreign materiel, including captured vehicles, were quite limited before the war. This had a lot to do with the technical condition of the vehicles that fell into the hands of the Red Army. As a rule, this condition was far from ideal, meaning that the scope of possible trials was limited. Full scale trials were rare. For example, the Pz.Kpfw.I Ausf.A tank captured in the fall of 1936 in Spain arrived more or less intact, and therefore could be used for many trials, including trials against various obstacles. It's hard to say that these trials were very useful since Soviet tanks of that era were already more than a match for this tank. The T-26 that fought against the Pz.Kpfw.I Ausf.A in Spain surpassed it in all parameters. Nevertheless, there was a certain value in these trials.

Pz.Kpfw.III Ausf.H tank "Isabella" during winter trials, January-March 1942.

Optics often come up in discussions that compare Soviet and German tanks. The famous "Zeiss optics" are often invoked by those who are not very well versed in the subject matter. The issue was not in Soviet sights. Plenty of them survived to this day, and any who wish can evaluate their quality on their own. German tanks were first and foremost superior in their observation devics. Their visibility was better than that of Soviet tanks, which was often a deciding factor in victory on the battlefield. However, the evolution of German observation devices is an interesting topic for discussion.

German tank building during WW2 ended up in a situation where the similar Pz.Kpfw.III and Pz.Kpfw.IV tanks as well as SPGs and other vehicles on their chassis were built in parallel in large numbers. The tank chassis were similar in many of their characteristics. They were equipped with the same engines and transmissions of the same type. At the same the designs were incompatible in many ways. Let us try to figure out how the Germans arrived at two solutions instead of one and why multiple attempts to unite the two designs ended in failure.

German tanks and SPGs of the second half of WW2 are often praised as "wonder weapons". Based on what is written about them, one can only come to the conclusion that Germany lost WW2 by accident. This is often said about the "big cats": the Tiger, Panther, and so on. Indeed, Germany's tank industry took a lead in 1943. Thanks to a sudden jump forward, one can argue that Germany had the best heavy and medium tanks. However, it was in the second half of 1943 that the Germans began to lose their grasp on the Eastern Front. A year later, German tank industry was no longer in the lead. The issues it faced were systematic, and despite an arguable second plate in the tank race, the Germans had no future when it came to either the tanks or their armament.

German tank building was in a difficult state towards the end of WW2. The issue wasn't just in factories damaged by bombers, loss of significant territories, and shortages of resources. The consequences of mistakes in planning and production as well as unscrupulous competition began to crop up. Let's take a look at how the new head of the Panzerkommission tried to bring order back to German tank building and what came of it.

As you've seen in previous articles, diagrams showing weak areas of enemy tanks were pretty common in the Red Army. However, these diagrams were usually produced as a result of thorough study and live fire tests. Sometimes diagrams had to be produced with less information, and thus ended up a little bit more vague, like these ones drawn up in the early stages of the war.

The tank was born on the battlefields of WWI where it had to combat not only enemy fortifications, but also mud. Tanks were often lost not from enemy fire, but from being stuck on cross country terrain. Engineers and the military first started thinking about how to improve mobility of their vehicles. Further improvements focused on improving mobility in general, but advanced methods of driving on soft terrain did not progress past experiments. Engineers returned to the issue of improving off-road mobility in WWII. In addition to mud, tanks got a new enemy: snow. This issue was most prevalent on the Soviet-German front where there was more snow than anywhere else for obvious reasons.

The tendency to increase armour protection was one of the most notable features of the German tank building school. No nation in the world increased protection without a radical change to the chassis. For instance, the Pz.Kpfw.III more than tripled the thickness of its front armour compared to its initial form. The Pz.Kpfw.IV set a record, quadrupling the thickness of the front hull compared to that of the B.W. This wasn't it, as the Germans still worked on improving protection of tanks that were already build. This article will cover those methods.

I previously posted some photos from trials of the armour skirts of a captured Pz.Kpfw.III Ausf.N tank. It turned out that the skirts themselves were not very difficult to penetrate, but they destabilized small projectiles enough to prevent penetration of the main armour, as well as offer a few other benefits. Here are some more results from that same test.

Works on Soviet tank building are published with striking regularity. Some are the results of many years of archival research, but many are based on prior works. There is nothing shameful about this, as skillful compilation is an art of no lesser value than writing from scratch. However, an issue with credibility may arise when picking secondary sources, and even primary documents can contain mistakes often caused by a lack of information. As a result, dozens of myths were built around Soviet tank building over the course of decades that live on today. This article will discuss such myths connected to pre-war tank building in the Soviet Union.