8 Operating German Tanks on World War II

Elefant (German for "elephant") was a schwerer Panzerjäger ("heavy tank destroyer") of the German Wehrmacht used in small numbers in World War II. It was built in 1943 under the name Ferdinand, after its designer Ferdinand Porsche. In 1944, after modification of the existing vehicles, they were renamed Elefant. The official German designation wasPanzerjäger Tiger (P) and the ordnance inventory designation was Sd. Kfz. 184.

Porsche AG had manufactured about one hundred chassis for their proposal of the Tiger tank, the unsuccessful "Porsche Tiger", in the Nibelungenwerk factory in Sankt Valentin, Austria. Both Henschel and Porsche chassis used the same Krupp-designed turret - the Henschel design having its turret more-or-less centrally located on its hull, with the Porsche design placing the turret much nearer the front of the superstructure. Since the competing Henschel Tiger design was chosen for production, the Porsche chassis were no longer required for the Tiger tank project. It was therefore decided that the Porsche chassis were to be used as the basis of a new heavy tank destroyer, mounting Krupp's newly developed 88 mm Pak 43/2 anti-tank gun. This precise long-range weapon was intended to take out enemy tanks before they reached their own range of effective fire.

Therefore the somewhat ad hoc design, Ferdinand supplanted the previous light tank destroyers, like Marder II and Marder III, in the offensive role. The similar gun was used in the lightly armored Hornisse / Nashorn tank destroyer, built in parallel.  

 Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus was a German World War II super-heavy tank completed in late 1944. It is the heaviest fully enclosed armoured fighting vehicle ever built. Only two hulls and one turret were completed before the testing grounds were captured by the advancing Soviet forces.

These two prototypes – one with, one without turret – underwent trials in late 1944. The complete vehicle was 10.2 metres (33 ft 6 in) long, 3.71 metres (12 ft 2 in) wide and 3.63 metres (11.9 ft) tall. Weighing 200 metric tons, the Maus's main armament was a 128 mm KwK 44 gun (55 calibers long barrel), based on the 12.8 cm Pak 44 anti-tank artillery piece, with a coaxial 75 mm gun. The 128 mm gun was powerful enough to destroy all enemy armored fighting vehicles at close or medium ranges, and even some at ranges exceeding 3500 meters.

The principal problem in development of the Maus was finding a powerful enough engine for its weight that could be carried in the tank. Though the design called for a maximum speed of 20 kilometres per hour (12 mph), no engine was found that could power the prototype to more than 13 kilometres per hour (8.1 mph) under ideal conditions. The weight also made it impossible to cross most bridges; it was intended to ford or submerge and use a snorkel to cross rivers.

Jagdtiger ("Hunting Tiger") is the common name of a German tank destroyer of World War II. The official German designation was Panzerjäger Tiger Ausf. B. The ordnance inventory designation was Sd. Kfz. 186. It saw service in small numbers from late 1944 to the end of the war on both the Western and Eastern Front. The Jagdtiger was the heaviestarmored fighting vehicle operationally used during World War II. Due to an excessive weight the Jagdtiger was continuously plagued with mechanical problems.

With the success of the StuG III, Marder I, Marder II, and Marder III in the tank destroyer role, the military leadership of Nazi Germany decided to use the chassis of existing armored fighting vehicles as the basis for self-propelled guns. German tank destroyers of World War II mostly used fixed casemates instead of moveable turrets to significantly reduce the cost of mounting large caliber guns. By early 1943 a decision was made to install a 128 mm gun on a Panther or Tiger I chassis as a heavy assault gun. The Panther chassis was considered unsuitable after a wooden mockup of the design was constructed. On October 20, 1943 another wooden mockup was constructed on a Tiger II chassis, and presented to Hitler in East Prussia. Two prototypes were produced; a version with the eight road wheel Porsche suspension system (number 305001) and a version with the Henschel nine overlapping wheel suspension system (number 305002), as used on the production Tiger II, were completed in February 1944. It was originally designated as Jagdpanzer VI, but was later named theJagdtiger. It received the inventory ordnance number Sd.Kfz. 186. In early 1942 a request was made by the Army General Staff to mount a 128 mm gun on a self-propelled armored chassis. On May 18, 1942 Adolf Hitler ordered that the 128 mm gun be utilized in the tank destroyer role, rather than for infantry support. Firing tests of the 128 mm gun showed to have a high percentage of hits; lower caliber heavy shells such as the 88 mm and 105 mm were also tested.

Tiger II is the common name of a German heavy tank of the Second World War. The final official German designation wasPanzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B, often shortened to Tiger B. The ordnance inventory designation was Sd.Kfz.182. It is also known under the informal name Königstiger (the German name for the "Bengal tiger"), often mistranslated as King Tiger or Royal Tiger by Allied soldiers.

The design followed the same concept as the Tiger I, but was intended to be even more formidable. The Tiger II combined the thick armor of the Tiger I with the sloped armor used on the Panther medium tank. The tank weighed almost seventy metric tons, was protected by 100 to 180 mm (3.9 to 7.1 in) of armor to the front, and was armed with the long barrelled8.8 cm Kampfwagenkanone 43 L/71 gun. The chassis was also the basis for the Jagdtiger turretless tank destroyer.

The Tiger II was issued to heavy tank battalions of the Army (Schwere Heerespanzerabteilung - abbreviated s.H.Pz.Abt) and the Waffen-SS (s.SS.Pz.Abt). It was first used in combat with s.H.Pz.Abt. 503 during the Normandy campaign on 11 July 1944; on the Eastern Front the first unit to be outfitted with Tiger IIs was s.H.Pz.Abt. 501 which by 1 September 1944 listed 25 Tiger IIs operational.

Tiger I is the common name of a German heavy tank developed in 1942 and used in World War II. The final official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. E, often shortened to Tiger. It was an answer to the unexpectedly formidable Soviet armour encountered in the initial months of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, particularly the T-34 and the KV-1. The Tiger I design gave the Wehrmacht its first tank mounting the 88 mm gun, in its initial armored fighting vehicle-dedicated version, which in its Flak version had previously demonstrated its effectiveness against both air and ground targets. During the course of the war, the Tiger I saw combat on all German battlefronts. It was usually deployed in independent tank battalions, which proved to be quite formidable.

While the Tiger I was feared by many of its opponents, it was over-engineered, used expensive and labour intensive materials and production methods, and was time-consuming to produce. Only 1,347 were built between August 1942 and August 1944. The Tiger was prone to certain types of track failures and immobilizations, and limited in range by its huge fuel consumption. It was, however, generally mechanically reliable but expensive to maintain. It was also complicated to transport, and vulnerable to immobilization when mud, ice and snow froze between its overlapping and interleaved road wheels in winter weather conditions, often jamming them solid. In 1944, production was phased out in favour of the Tiger II.

The tank was given its nickname Tiger by Ferdinand Porsche, and the Roman numeral was added after the later Tiger II entered production. The initial official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausführung H (‘PanzerVI version H’, abbreviated PzKpfw VI Ausf. H), but the tank was redesignated as PzKpfw VI Ausf. E in March 1943. It also had the ordnance inventory designation SdKfz 181.

Today, only a handful of Tigers survive in museums and exhibitions worldwide. The Bovington Tank Museum's Tiger 131, is currently the only one restored to running order.

Panther is the common name of a medium tank fielded by Nazi Germany in World War II that served from mid-1943 to the end of the European war in 1945. It was intended as a counter to the T-34, and to replace the Panzer III and Panzer IV; while never replacing the latter, it served alongside it as well as the heavier Tiger tanks until the end of the war. The Panther's excellent combination of firepower, mobility, and protection served as a benchmark for other nations' late war and immediate post-war tank designs, and it is frequently regarded as one of the best tank designs of World War II.

Until 1944, it was designated as the Panzerkampfwagen V Panther and had the ordnance inventory designation ofSd.Kfz. 171. On 27 February 1944, Hitler ordered that the Roman numeral V be deleted from the designation.

The Panther tank was a compromise of various requirements. While sharing essentially the same engine as the Tiger I tank, it had better frontal armor (including the benefit of a sloping angle, increasing effective armor depth), better gun penetration, was lighter overall and thus faster, and could handle rough terrain better than the Tigers. The tradeoff was weaker side armor; the Panther proved to be deadly in open country and shooting from long range, but vulnerable to close-quarters combat. Also, the 75 mm gun fired a slightly smaller shell than the Tiger's 88 mm gun, providing less high explosive firepower against infantry.

The Panther was also far cheaper to produce than the Tiger tanks, and only slightly more expensive than the Panzer IV, as its design came to fruition at the same time that the Reich Ministry of Armament and War Production was making great efforts to increase war production. Key elements of the Panther design, such as its armor, transmission and final drive, were compromises made specifically to improve production rates and address Germany's war shortages, whereas other elements such as its highly compact engine and its complex suspension system remained with their elegant but complicated engineering. The result was that Panther tank production was far higher than what was possible for the Tiger tanks, but not much higher than what had been accomplished with the Panzer IV. At the same time, the simplified final drive became the single major cause of breakdowns of the Panther tank, and was a problem that was never corrected.

The Panther tank arrived in 1943 at a crucial phase in World War II for Germany. Rushed into combat at the Battle of Kursk with un-corrected teething problems, which resulted in breakdowns and other equipment failures, the Panther tank would thereafter only be fighting outnumbered in Germany's steady retreat against the Allies for the remainder of World War II. Its success as a battlefield weapon was thus hampered by Germany's generally declining position in the war, with the loss of airpower protection by the Luftwaffe, the loss of fuel and training space, and the declining quality of tank crews. Nevertheless, the Panther tank demanded respect from the Allies, and its combat capabilities led directly to the introduction of heavier Allied tanks such as the Soviet IS-2 and the American M26 Pershing into the war.

Hummel (German: "bumble bee") was a self-propelled artillery gun based on the Geschützwagen III/IV chassis, armed with a 15 cm howitzer. It was used by the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War from late 1942 until the end of the war.

The full designation was Panzerfeldhaubitze 18M auf Geschützwagen III/IV (Sf) Hummel, Sd.Kfz. 165. On February 27, 1944, Hitler ordered the name Hummel to be dropped as being inappropriate for a fighting vehicle.

The Hummel was designed in 1942 out of a need for mobile artillery support for the tank forces, the lack of which had first been felt during the invasion of the USSR. There were some self-propelled artillery vehicles already in service with the Wehrmacht at the time, but most were of limited value.

The first option looked at was to mount a 10.5 cm leFH17 howitzer on a Panzer III chassis, but this was rejected in favour of the same howitzer on a Panzer IV chassis. One prototype was built of this design.

This design was again rejected, this time in favour of a more powerful solution: mounting the 15 cm sFH 18 L/30 howitzer on the specially designedGeschützwagen III/IV, which took elements of both the Panzer III (driving and steering system) and Panzer IV chassis (suspension and engine). The same chassis was also used for the Nashorn tank destroyer.

The Hummel had an open-topped lightly armoured fighting compartment at the back of the vehicle which housed both the howitzer and the crew. The engine was moved to the centre of the vehicle to make room for this compartment. Late modelHummels had a slightly redesigned driver compartment and front superstructure, to offer more room to the radio operator and driver.

The Panzerkampfwagen IV (Pz.Kpfw. IV) commonly known as the Panzer IV was a medium tank developed in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and used extensively during the Second World War. Its ordnance inventory designation wasSd.Kfz. 161.

Designed as an infantry-support tank, the Panzer IV was not originally intended to engage enemy armor—that function was performed by the lighter Panzer III. However, with the flaws of pre-war doctrine becoming apparent and in the face of Soviet T-34 tanks, the Panzer IV soon assumed the tank-fighting role of its increasingly obsolete cousin. The most widely manufactured and deployed German tank of the Second World War, the Panzer IV was used as the base for many other fighting vehicles, including the Sturmgeschütz IV assault gun, Jagdpanzer IV tank destroyer, the Wirbelwind self-propelled anti-aircraft weapon, and the Brummbär self-propelled gun.

Robust and reliable, it saw service in all combat theaters involving Germany and has the distinction of being the only German tank to remain in continuous production throughout the war, with over 8,800 produced between 1936 and 1945. Upgrades and design modifications, often made in response to the appearance of new Allied tanks, extended its service life. Generally these involved increasing the Panzer IV's armor protection or upgrading its weapons, although during the last months of the war with Germany's pressing need for rapid replacement of losses, design changes also included retrograde measures to simplify and speed manufacture.

The Panzer IV was the most widely exported tank in German service, with around 300 sold to partners such as Finland, Romania, Spain and Bulgaria. After the war, the French and Spanish sold dozens of Panzer IVs to Syria, where they saw combat in the 1967 Six-Day War.