Today i pickedup a dragon panther A late version. After getting home I realised that i know very little about these very tough look beasts. I would like to know a little about this tank…was it a successful tank, did it have any downfalls ect… if somebody could steer me in the right direction to info or tell me anything at all, please do so as i would be very greatful
Dave
the Dragon Panther A is a great kit
the Panther was one of the best tanks of the war
Yeah, excet for the exposed n’ open gas tanks in the back! One shermie can flank and destroy from the rear, but yes it a very great tank in the war! Mine favorite still the tiger though…[:I]
Where to start…
Armor, ranging from 110mm (turret) to 16mm (belly) with 40mm armour at a 50 deg. angle around the fuel tanks. [;)] The combination of armor thickness and angle provided better protection than the Tiger I’s thicker flat plates (I have the U.S Army penetration tables somewhere), the allies had a real hard time putting a hole in this beast (I have a pic of one that took 13 hits to the frontal armor with no penetration!).
The engine was adequate but the transmission was subject to occasional failure due to the weight of the vehicle. The early ones also had road wheel truble due to weight. The original wheels had 16 bolts holding the rubber tire in place but tires kept seperating fromthe wheels so the number of bolts was increased to 24, this did not completely solve the problem so the “steel wheel” was introduced. This had a malleble iron rim in place of the rubber tire but it was completely unsatisfactory because there was not enough “give” in the iron and there were reports of the rim cracking the cast track links.
The 75mm main gun went through three evolutions during development all of them increasing the barrel length. Placed in a turret that traversed 360 deg. in 60 seconds this weapon was capable of dispatching any allied armor at ranges we couldn’t touch.
Even though the Tiger II is based on the Tiger chassis the bodywork is clearly derived from the Panther, the turret is even the same basic shape as the never finished Panther F (which was also to be used on the Panther II)
Some believe that the Panther was the best tank design of the war and was still at the top into the '50s, I read that the French even used captured ones after the war and preferred them to the Sherman.
In light of the Tiger I’s step back in armor design and the Tiger II’s serious mechanical problems the Panther was IMHO the best German tank of the war.
If I were going to choose a tank to fight WWII in, I’d have chosen a Panther. Also, I believe those ‘fuel tanks’ on back were stowage boxes. My next choice would be the Pershing… underpowered, shredded fan belts and all, it was the only Allied tank that could take hits from a Panther or Tiger I and still return fire… too bad it wasn’t around for D-Day a lot of Allied tankers would’ve been spared.
Ron
The soviet IS-2 would also have been able to trade blows with a Pather or a Tiger, at least as well as the Pershing, plus there were a lot more of them.
A shot of the Panther stowage box: The trapezoidal box with the damaged zimmerite. BTW: those are pioneers (engineers) with what appears to be a mine detector.
fuel system layout from German manual: The center tank would be against the rear armor plate The upper outside ones in the sponsons outboard of the radiators and the lower outside ones below the radiators in the lower part of the hull.
The truly weak spot of a Panther is it’s final drive, which was too weak of a design and had an average fatigue life of only 150 km. (94 miles).
The Panther G was even better than the A with more side armor and in some later versions a reinforced mantlet to avoid shot traps.
[(-D][(-D] I cant beleave you thought they were fuel tanks,
if you look in the Panther group build theres lots of reference
and forget about Michall Wittmann and his Tiger heres a link to Ernst Barkman with his Panther http://www.geocities.com/alkantolga/panzerace/ernst.htm
and some history and photos
http://www.achtungpanzer.com/pz4.htm#panther
http://www.twenot.nl/panther.htm
http://www.panzerv-panther.fsnet.co.uk/gallery.html