The Panzer IV's base design began production in 1936. It was not a heavy tank. I was upgraded throughout the war, but, never to the level of a heavy tank. History shows that by late 1944 the Panzer IV was obsolete.

The Sherman Easy Eight was probably a better tank than the Panzer IV. It certainly was not a "lightweight" compared to the Panzer IV.

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Posted by H.M. Murdock

B.A.'s Van

Member since Feb 2013

2113 posts

Posted on 10/25/14 at 9:41 am to Champagne

The US tanks at the beginning of the war were outclassed in the armor/main gun area. What was so great about the US tanks was manufacturing, maintenance and ease of use, all of which outclassed the Germans. Later in the war the M4E8 with the high velocity 76mm gun helped make the Sherman a more formidable tank. The Brits Firefly Sherman faired pretty good as well.

The Panzer IV was considered to be the M4's counterpart, essential a light/medium tank. The Tiger and Panther tanks were much larger then the M4 and thus performance of armor and gun systems showed here.

Panther below which many consider the best design of the war.

In reality, most German divisions were never at full strength, in fact the US infantry divisions many times had more tracked vehicles then the a German tank/armor division could field in late 44.

The weight of the Tiger II (King Tiger) helped limit its success as off road travel became almost impossible. We must also remember that the Germans could not produce new equipment like the US could. As the Allies pushed across Europe we did so with air superiority. Heavy German tanks were then regulated to act as hidden defensive positions as the risk of air attack was becoming to great.

I briefly touched on a few points here, in reality one would need a few hours to answer the OP's question and this is all I will muster at the moment.

Pershing did see limited combat, why we did not produce more was an issue with certain Generals and procurement/tactics.

Following the war the M60 was a great tank, seeing service with the US in the first Gulf War in '91 and still in service with other militaries around the war.

Sherman next to Tiger

Sherman passing Panzer IV

The images are to illustrate the size differences in these tanks. Which should help folks understand a bit of the difference with out going into a 15k word essay here.

This post was edited on 10/25/14 at 9:49 am

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Posted by Ace Midnight

Between sanity and madness

Member since Dec 2006

89622 posts

Posted on 10/25/14 at 9:47 am to Champagne

quote:
The Panzer IV's base design began production in 1936. It was not a heavy tank. I was upgraded throughout the war, but, never to the level of a heavy tank. History shows that by late 1944 the Panzer IV was obsolete.

It was a workhorse and the most produced German tank. They used it for everything. However, you're correct - it was never a heavy tank (maybe when it was first fielded, by comparison, it might have been called "heavy") - it was their "general purpose"/infantry support tank. The Panzer III was the tank with the focus on fighting other tanks.

What happened was - in the gap between the III/IV era and the late war V/VI (Panther/Tiger) era, was the T-34. The Germans required bigger and bigger guns to kill T-34s. As the IV had a bigger turret ring, it was more easily retrofitted with bigger guns. The roles, sort of, flipped for a short period, and ultimately they just quit making IIIs and kept cranking out IVs until the new generation of tanks were ready (ETA: This is technically incorrect - the Germans produced IVs until the bitter end, but they intended to ultimately field nothing but Vs and VIs).

If anything, the modern Main Battle Tank, is a descendent of late war T-34 and Panther models, rather than the Tiger, in other words, a tank designed to do everything fairly well. We've just developed the capacity to make them very well armored and very lethal, while maintaining relatively high mobility.

This post was edited on 10/25/14 at 9:58 am

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Posted by RogerTheShrubber