Panzer IV: The Backbone of the German Wehrmacht

If you do like these tank chats, do please subscribe to the Tank Museum's YouTube channel. This tank chat's going to be about the SDKFZ 161, known to most of us as the Panzer IV. And the Panzer IV is that tank that Germany makes the most of in the Second World War. About 8,353 of them are made, so that's a lot of tanks for the German tank production. There's one other armored vehicle they make more of, 10,000 Sturmgeschützes are made. But this is that classic German tank of the wartime era. But actually, it's also a tank that sees action after the war in other armies. And the last time it sees, it actually goes into combat is 1967. So it had a long old service life as well. Now, if you've seen our earlier tank chats on the Panzer I, Panzer II, even Panzer III, we've talked there a lot about the situation in Germany after the First World War and their rearmament programs in the 20s and 30s, how they went about things, what their theories were. So I'd recommend having a look at those. So I won't repeat everything, but broadly, the situation is in the early 1930s, under the influence of certain German generals, mainly Guderian, there is a push to put Panzer units, Panzer divisions together, and they are looking at what they can build in terms of tanks to actually equip these new divisions and develop a new way of armored warfare. Now, the Panzer I and Panzer II, in essence, become the training tanks for the German military to get them used to. They want to build them in a relative hurry. The Panzer III and Panzer IV are ultimately going to be the tanks that they really want to equip the new Panzer divisions. Even though the Panzer IIs actually are going to be used in combat and Panzer I's to a certain degree as well. The Panzer III, Guderian argues, we need a tank with an anti-tank weapon on it, i.e. a gun on the turret with a 360 turning turret that is going to be capable of taking on other tanks should they meet them, but also supporting the infantry in the attack. And the Panzer IV is going to be a support tank, a tank that will carry a 7.5 centimeter howitzer which will fire high explosives. And that will be used to take out targets that the Panzer III's gun will not be able to cope with. So with high explosive, it tends to be things like artillery positions, buildings, infantry in the open, et cetera, things like that. So that would be the idea for why you need the Panzer IV. And as is the way in Germany, so it's January 1934, the German military issue, a requirement to industry, three companies, some of whom already working on developments for tanks, Krupp, Rheinmetall, Borsig, and Mann, the third company. Those companies are all approached with the idea of building what was then still under, because of the Versailles Peace Treaty issues, under the idea of being, it's going to be a medium tractor or a BW, beg-like vehicle, Wagen, it's basically a thing. So BW, accompanying vehicle. So that request goes out to industry and ultimately it's Krupp that actually gets the contract. Initially, the Germans are interested in following one of their key engineers, Niekamp, his idea of the interleave road wheels, because, and this is another thing, when we step back, you can see the Germans are in a bit of a hurry to get this production going. They have lots of issues in terms of finding factory space skills, engineering, you know, they're learning on the job, as it were, as you'll see in those other developments in the Panzer IIs and Panzer IIIs. So they have issues here. So one of the things that Krupp, even though the German military likes the idea of torsion bar and interleave road wheels, actually, in the end, Krupp goes for a very simple suspension system, where actually either side we've got leaf springs on a hub arrangement and double road wheels and sort of four either side, making eight sets of road wheels each turn. So things like that are, you can see, even in the development of the Panzer IV, there is this idea, sometimes corners have to be cut or things have to be done in a manner, because quite simply, they just don't have the engineering capabilities or the machine tools to manufacture everything. Now, very quickly, it's 1936, they're already starting to say, right, we can start putting this vehicle into series production. And the Ausf. Rung, or the Model A, the first major model, they only make 34 of these, but this idea that what they're going through is a series of, right, here's what we've got to so far, and then out will come the Ausf. Rung B with improvement. So it's almost on the job, as it were, as they're building these in the factories, coming up with better solutions to some of the problems, better, easier manufacturing techniques, et cetera. So that Ausf. Rung goes through. And what you're really looking at, again, to step back, from Ausf. Rung A at the very beginning of the production series to Ausf. Rung J, what you will really see is an increase in armour protection, in firepower, and later also in simplifying the design and build so they could make more of them quickly. And that tends to come in right at the end of the production series. So what do you get if you get an Ausf. Rung A, or just basically the early ones? It's got a five-man crew. You've got three in the turret. You've got two in the front of the tank. You've got a driver and a bow machine gunner next to him on the right-hand side as you're facing forward. You've got there as well, behind in that turret situation, the commander is in the centre of the turret and he's given, it goes through a number of changes, a cupola to command from. Either side of him, on his left-hand side, again, as you face forward, you can see that's where the gunner's position would be. And on the right-hand side will be where the loader's position is. And one of the things that was picked up on when Panzer IVs were being captured by the British in North Africa, one of the things was the good ergonomics was admired. The fact that that commander's position seems to have been very central, high up, best position in terms of viewing at the back of the turret, but he can also see down almost right the way through to the front. And again, little details like this were picked up on by the British. It's very good because again, we've mentioned it before, in the stress of combat, et cetera, you think, you know, okay, they've got throat mics, intercoms, they're talking to each other, but sometimes it's a look, it's a calmness, it's a wink, it's a smile, it's whatever else it happens to be. And they could pick that up, but actually the ergonomics inside the vehicle was actually very well designed. They start the early models with a Maybach HL engine. It's a 108. They later go to the 120 TRM engine that goes into the main production runs of the Panzer IV. It's fitted in the rear. They offset the turret slightly and the engine in the opposite side because the drive shaft that comes right the way through to the front has to go up the middle. And if you imagine all the operations for the turret basket below where you've got the rotary junction underneath the turret basket, of course, you've got to actually get that out the way so you can maneuver this drive shaft to the front. Gearbox is in the front and you can see the sprockets are on the front there. So in a way, it's what we would consider a fairly traditional modern or World War II tank layout in the way it's put together. For armour protection, as I mentioned, it starts actually the very early models relatively thin. You've got about 15 millimetres of armour on the front there, slightly thicker armour actually on the turret, but it ends up by the Model J to having 80 millimetres of armour on the front and about 50 millimetres on the turret. So that progression that goes on all the way through, and this again comes back to, if we're looking at the history, the whole of German World War II tank history, the influence of Hitler. Hitler, again, it cannot be overemphasised enough how much when Hitler says something, it is enacted by the German military and industry. And again, in 1940, it's Hitler who says, right, I want Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs to be taken from a lower category of demand for a priority for the German military into a higher category. It is Hitler who then in the spring, or I think it's about May of 1941, he actually asked that why not try to fit the five centimetre anti-tank gun on the Panzer IV. Now that's an important decision there or an idea there because this vehicle, as we said, it's a support vehicle. It's supposed to have that short barrelled L24 7.5 centimetre gun on it. And that was really, it could fire at other tanks. It did have an anti-tank round, but it was really there for its high explosive capacity. So the fact Hitler is now saying already, you might be able to put an anti-tank gun on it. And that follows on, of course, then there's the invasion of Russia in the summer of 1941, when all the KV tanks, T-34 tanks come out. And this idea of we are going to need thicker armour, bigger guns to match the Soviet tanks, the better quality ones, that then goes back to the German high command and Hitler is reading these reports again. And again, the idea of the five centimetre gun is dropped very quickly. And Hitler then in the autumn argues to say, put a 7.5 high velocity gun. So same size of the hole at the end of the barrel, but 7.5 high velocity, much longer gun. This is going to be the L43 gun that is going to go on this vehicle. And it's developed, it's actually originally Krupp, take a Rheinmetall gun and develop it further. And that is again at the instigation of Hitler, because he is now looking at the Panzer IV as thinking like most tanks, it's going to have to meet other tanks. And therefore the support role, we can do that with other methods. Hence Sturmgeschütz and other ways of doing this. So again, it's that Hitler's influence. Hitler again the following year in the spring of 43, he is the one when he sees the results of these putting Schützen, which are basically Finnish armour plates are standing away from the main armour of the vehicle on the side and on the turrets. He then insists this can stop or it basically helps tumble Russian anti-tank bullets. And he says, right, put them on all tanks. So straight away, that's another thing that influences the Panzer IV because then they start putting on Schützen on this and you can see it around the turret on this vehicle. And that influences the Ausf. from the next models that come out because when you put the side skirts on, you'll be able to see it on this turret. It actually covers some of the vision ports and interferes with some of the operations of the tanks. So they have to adjust for that. But if Hitler says it's going to happen, it happens again. So that again is another one of those things in the background you'll see. And again, in 43, where Speer and Hitler at various conferences, they come together and they end up doing the Adolf Hitler tank programme to see what tanks are going to be developed further. And again, stopping making these huge numbers of varieties, let's boil it down. The Panzer IV, they are expecting the Panzer IV to be replaced by the Panther as a medium German tank with a powerful anti-tank gun on it before the end of the war. That was their intentions as it were, but actually the Panzer IV keeps going. And again, stepping back a bit as well, right from the early days, the Panzer IV was looked at as was the Panzer III with a view that this is going to be the basis for other types of vehicles. So we see bridge layers, we later see anti-aircraft mounts, verbal wind, et cetera, put on it. We see it as being a basis for self-propelled artillery, et cetera. But that's in a way is another story from the main gun tanks. Now, the progression of putting that new gun onto a Panzer IV, that starts happening with the Auf F. And the initial gun is a 7.5, as I said, anti-tank gun. It'll go through about 1,800 metres. It will go through about 77 millimetres of armour plate with its armour piecing round. That is a huge difference. I think it's about 70% difference from the earlier short-barrelled 7.5, its capacity to go through armour. You know, it is a very effective anti-tank gun. And it means, again, when these start turning up in North Africa, the British call them the Panzer IV specials, they actually call them at the time, when they see them with a longer barrel. And again, in certain types of battle situations, think of the desert where you might have open landscapes, you can use a full range of that gun, being knocked out at 1,700 metres by a Panzer IV. You know, most of the British vehicles, the best gun they had at the time this was coming in was going to be the 75 millimetre on a Grant tank. So, you know, and that didn't have the same velocity and the same penetration as a new 75 on the Panzer IV. So that was a problem at certain times. And again, if you read the accounts, when the new Panzer IVs, what they then called the F2 model. So it's Ausf. 1, has a shorter barrelled, Ausf. 2, F2, sorry, has the longer 75 millimetre gun with a new high velocity. When they start appearing, you can see the crew reports are, again, there's a level of satisfaction that all of a sudden they now have a firepower that can really take on the Soviets on the Eastern front and in the Western desert as well, you know, the British and later the American forces as well, that way that they can be, you know, a very effective anti-tank gun with a good killing range. So that model becomes kind of like the really important one to have a look at. That gun, originally it comes out with a round muzzle brake on the end, a slightly sort of bulbous shaped one. That reduces the recoil of the gun by about 55%, which again is one of those other issues because the Panzer IV, when it was originally made, it had quite a wide turret ring. What ends up happening is instead of developing on the Panzer III, which although it does go through development, it's the Panzer IV that has the bigger potential for further development. So that is the one that takes forward. And ultimately, once you've got an anti-tank gun on it, it's overtaking the Panzer III's roles. It's no longer a support tank, it's actually doing what the Panzer III was originally invented for. And a lot of people comment as well, when you think of those two tank programmes, the issues the Germans go through, what they ended up is actually two relatively similar tanks came out at the end of it. And again, early days when you're trying to sort of learn your different tanks, Panzer III's and Panzer IV's, there's a great deal of similarity, shape, whatever. The Panzer IV is just a little bit bigger. And because of that, it has the development potential that the Germans actually take up on. There's a newer gun as well, a slightly longer gun, an L48 7.5 is fitted later the following year, and that has a different muzzle brake. And that's the type of gun that's on this tank here, behind me, this particular Panzer IV. So armour protection is upped, again, Hitler's influence. He insists that some of the production has thicker armour on the front. Again, he's reading reports from the Eastern Front, where of course most German tank fighting is going on throughout the war. 75% of Panzer IV losses are actually on the Eastern Front. So that's where all the big tank battles are going. And what happens there is you end up with the idea that the new gun has the new type of muzzle brake. So that's put on there. It's slightly longer than that earlier high-velocity gun. So the L48 version is slightly longer that way. As the war progresses and Germany is getting bombed, it's having more problems with gaining raw materials. And it is also, again, under spear. He's trying to speed the production process up. So the vehicles, as you're going through, by the time you're getting to the Ausf. J, they are simplifying them. Some of the simplification was done because of things like, there's no point putting vision ports, so they're then held up by Schützen. But other things later on, they're starting to simplify just to get it through the factories quicker because they can't wait for other components. So the J, they get rid of the motorised turret mechanism. They get rid of that completely, and you can only turn the turret by hand wheels. And that's a way of trying to simplify the production as it goes through. Now, this particular tank's an interesting one because it shows another feature of the Panzer IV production. When they go through those different Ausf. Js, quite often what happens is an earlier model, if it has the opportunity, if it hasn't been completely knocked out in combat, if it goes back to the factory, it is upgraded to a newer Ausf. J standard. So what we've actually got here is a relatively early tank. It's actually a model Ausf. Jd, which there was only about 230 odd of those made fairly early on in 1939, 1940. But this one has actually gone back to the factory and it's had additional armour to bring it up to a later standard. You can see bolted on the side, bolted on the front. This, when it was first issued, would have had the low velocity, the 7.5 millimetre gun. It's now got the later model 7.5 millimetre, the L48 gun there. So again, you can see with this particular tank, that idea also, another feature of the German military, that idea of upgrading to a newer standard where they possibly could older model tanks when they have the opportunity to do so. And this particular tank, we are not 100% certain whether in early days it saw combat, but it ends its career with the NSKK, which is basically a sort of paramilitary RAC or AA motoring organisation that the Germans had set up in the 1930s that develops and goes on to provide not only transport for the organisation, Todd helped support troops in the front line, et cetera. This was used for driver training and NSKK actually did a lot of driver training also for the German military, including tank crews as well. So we know the background to this one, whether it saw combat as an earlier model before it was upgraded, we're not too sure sort of thing. But again, it's one of those vehicles, a number of Panzer IVs captured in North Africa were brought back to the UK. This particular one has remained here after evaluation. This was at the end of the war, it was brought back to Britain earlier ones that some were actually used for firing trials. One earlier Panzer IV was actually given back from the Tank Museum to the Panzer Museum in Münster decades after the Second World War ended. But a fascinating, obviously, vehicle to be able to look at. And we can just have a look at one or two of those details, which I know sometimes when you're wondering what those different bits fitted on a tank are for. And with this vehicle, it's worth our while having a closer look at them. So as I mentioned, this one originally, it's a Model D. So a relatively early vehicle that has been upgraded and we can see this need to meet what Hitler has ordered on this particular vehicle, such as look at the thickening, the extra armor. We've got extra plates put on the side. That's when again, it was insisted that the side armor, as well as the frontal armor is increased. And the frontal armor they wanted to get up to, Hitler says, first of all, it was only some of the tanks, but then all the tanks, now it's got to be eight centimeters or 80 millimeters thick. Again, one of the other things we can see, some of those detailing. This gun originally, when this model was built, was the short barreled howitzer, the 7.5 centimeter gun. Now we've got that later model long, high velocity 7.5 centimeter gun. But one of the features that again, this bar that goes out over the end, from the front of the turret here, the bar is so that when the turret is actually slewed around, that bar will catch on here, which is where the aerial, this is broken off sadly, but the aerial goes straight up and it will actually push that aerial, which is on a spring all the way down into this wooden tray to keep it safe and out of the way. And it will spring back up once the vehicle is actually going, or once basically it's free of the turret and the gun. As I mentioned, so here we can see the Schützen. Again, they tended to put thicker plates on the turret, about eight millimeter thinner plates on the side. And as I mentioned, the idea there is not to actually, a lot of people think it was there to detonate hollow charge weapons. It has that effect, but it was originally the experimentation. They were firing Russian anti-tank rifles and it will tumble the bullet. It will actually break up the bullet or stop it hitting the main armor effectively. So that's why they were applied. And at the very end, you will see some of the Schützen are actually down to wire mesh. So they're actually using it more for that hollow charge, defeating hollow charge. Another thing you can see on this vehicle is here where they've added extra armor on the side of the bodies that has to work its way around the bump stop and the fixture for the suspension. And again, being an early vehicle, it's got rubber road wheels on the top here, return rollers. Again, later in the production run to save on rubber, these just become metal. The tracks as well were actually thickened for use on the Eastern front. And they also, they came up with other ideas such as a snow plow for the front of the vehicle, Hitler sees drawings, likes the idea of a snow plow and insists that they are made available for the frontline troops. And also to extend the range of the vehicle, certainly in the early years in Russia, they're looking to think, how do we get a Panzer IV to be able to travel further? So they actually make a trolley for the rear that doubles the range of the vehicle. So it ends up having a couple of drums on the rear trolley that can actually therefore make that vehicle go further. Some of these Panzer IVs were used or tested for Operation Sea Lion, the idea of the invasion of Britain. So it turned out to be quite a successful system where they could actually drive across the seabed off of landing craft, and they have a snorkel system to bring them ashore. Now, obviously Sea Lion never takes place, but we think some of those tanks, those Panzer IVs were used in the invasion of Russia to cross the Bug River. So that system was actually used in operation. And also, again, as we come around to the rear here, we can see some of the other features, the changes that have gone on. Here is a smoke handle system that basically you could drop smoke handles at the rear. But again, looking at this, this wouldn't have been effective with this type of exhaust muffler in place here. So again, sometimes the upgrades that you can see being put onto a vehicle actually negate some of the other roles. They've tried to deal with it in some areas, with cutouts, et cetera, in some other areas. You can see, actually, so you would have stopped using that when they had this muffler put on. Here we can see the proof that this is a very early model Panzer IV. This is a D model because of this bulge in the back of the turret to accommodate the commander's cupola. From the E model onwards, they just moved the cupola forward and just have a straight back, again, simplifying the manufacturing. And this, of course, is where you've got armoured vision blocks all going around that can be lifted. Split hatch at this particular time so it can go up either side. And again, as we were mentioning, that central position gives the commander a really good view forward, right in the middle of the tank. And also when you open the hatches and look inside, it also gives that nice central position from the point of view of crew management as well. Bin on the back of the turret to carry things that, again, no room, crew blankets, et cetera. And you'll see fixings all around. Again, some of those moved during the production run to carry the usual things every German tank has to carry, whether it's a fire extinguisher, a pickaxe, a jacking block, et cetera. So you can see all of those dotted around the vehicle. Panzer IV was, again, we see it as that classic German battle tank. It was actually supplied, over 300 of them were supplied to actually the Nazi's allies in the Second World War. And it has a life after the war as well because a number of countries carried on using them. Spain, Turkey, Finland carried on. They were in service there into the 1960s. And about, we think around about 100, just over 100, 50 or so from Czechoslovakia, maybe about the same number from France, Panzer IVs were put together and sold to Syria. And they actually see their last actions in the 1967 wars against the Israelis. So there was a number of Panzer IVs there and a number of still-on-the-Golan Heights dug in, as it were, they're still there to this day. So it's a tank that also saw a long service, a tank that was the only one that the Germans were producing throughout the entire war. And again, it's only when you look at it, you realize this is that classic Second World War German vehicle that saw action all around on every battlefront the Germans were fighting on, and proved to be, as so many tanks, that why are they successful? It's because they can accept upgrades and be developed and continue to be developed. That tends to be the sign of a successful vehicle. In these difficult times, obviously your support is really valued. So please do keep following us on social media, do subscribe to our channel. And if you've got the opportunity, perhaps order something from our shop, join one of our schemes like Patreon or our friends organization, and we'll try and keep going with giving you some content to keep you informed and entertained.