Quote:
Originally Posted by Sloniksp
In spring of 1941, a Soviet military delegation arrived at German tank schools and factories. This was done on the specific orders of Hitler as a deception in keeping his word in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
When the Germans showed the Russians the Panzer IV, the Russians protested that this couldnt be their newest and heaviest tank as their hosts claimed. In fact it was the best tank that the Germans had at the time. As a result Guderian and German experts recluctantly concluded that the Russians must have something better in their own production line.
Soon enough Guderian would be able to confirm that for himself.  |
That may be so but essentially the Mk IV was a very good tank as many who used them loved them as they were reliable and no so difficult to maintain on the battlefield, while on the otherhand the Pz Mk's V, VI and VII were rushed into production with the addage of fixing the problems on the battlefield, many hundreds of Panthers, Tigers, and King Tigers were left intact as they broke down, the Panther would have been a potential war winner if production had allowed faults to be ironed out before being deployed, but the Tiger and King Tiger though devestating were eventually white elephants, overall their drain on the Panzer production was more trouble than they were worth, it would have been something had the German Armies had an additional 7,000 to 10,000 Pz Mk IV's on the battlefields, but one failure even on this largest scale is where do you get the fuel.