Re: German favour Mark IV as main battle tank?
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Originally Posted by Jaeger
What if the Germans adopted the up gunned mark IV as a 'main battle tank' in 1942?
Dropping the production of mark III and scrapping the plans for the Panther?
The germans had trouble throughout the war to get the full compliment of tanks in their Panzer divisions. Would an all out production of Mark IV have remedied this?
Reading from my papers the production of mark IV peaked in '44 with around 300 per month.
But from '43 to the end of the war there was produced some 5987 Panthers
During 42-43 well over 1000 mark III were produced.
What if the resources 'wasted' on mark III and V were allocated to an all out production of mark IV, would the germans have fared better?
Less fuel consuming than Panther and Tiger it would help on the operational side to.. Or would it?
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Okay, I will respond to this without reading any other replies here so if I repeat whats already been said then please bear with me  . I have spent endless hours at work daydreaming about this very topic when I was supposed to be doing actual work and I have to say that if you erase both the tiger and the panther as well as Hitler's ridiculous elefant tanks and the like and fielded a mark IV with the high velocity 75mm gun then the germans would have been able to put at least 5 times as many tanks into battle than they did. would this have turned the tide of the war? I doubt it, in the end, they simply had bitten off far more than they could chew. 
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In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility:but when the blast of war blows in our ears,then imitate the action of the tiger;stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;then lend the eye a terrible aspect. William Shakespeare
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