Dear friends,

I have a copy of Osprey "Panther medium tank" which describes the later variants of Panther tanks- both panther F and panther II. There are some burning questions which I have kept for a long time over distinguishing the 2 types, which I have swept under the carpet for a long time until I decided to build a Panther F. Here goes,

a) Panther F (Dragon imperial series 9008) - is this tank named variant "F" because of its narrow turret? The kit has steel wheels, but I have seen some modeled with rubber rimmed wheels, what is the difference?

Are there any period pictures of narrow turret on a G hull?

b) I noted that page 39 of the Osprey book method Panther F is a narrow turret mounted on a slightly modified G chassis. What are the mods? Is it referring to the raised exhausted fan and steel wheels?

c) Is the Panther F also the Panther II?

If not, which tank is panther II? Or was there even a paper panzer called Panther II (which probably may be a mistake by Osprey?) is the Panther II referring to the E series E-50 tank? This tanks seems to sport the same narrow turret but with the E-series hull and steel wheels.

d) Then, there is the Tamiya Panther G with steel wheels which is rare and has seen no or little combat, is this also dubbed Panther F because it has steel wheels? Are there any photographic evidence of this tank?

In short what constitutes a Panther F? Is there such a tank called Panther II?

Confused
Kiong, aka musicwerks

I can't really help with the specifics but I have put a walkaround of the heavily damaged turret that was rescued from Larkhill Artillery ranges, and is now displayed in the Bovington Tank museum. The pictures are in the walkaround area of Armorama.

According to Thomas Jentz's book "Panther Tank: The Quest for Combat Supremacy", the Panther II was an up-armored Panther hull.

The Ausf.F was the Panther Ausf.G-based hull with Schallturm. This modified hull had thicker armor on the hull roof from the glacis plate to just in back of the plate mounting the driver and radio operator hatches. Those hatches were also new in that they slid to the side and there were guides on the outer edge of the roof to guide them. The hull weapon mount was different as it was for an MP44, not an MG34.

The steel wheels were developed for the Panther II. It seems M.A.N. made 23 Ausf.G with these wheels in Sept 1944 and some were used as the last road wheel on some Ausf.G made in March/April 1945.

I would suggest getting this book or Panzer Tracts 5-4 which only covers the Ausf.F and Panther II.
Panther book on Amazon
Panzer Tracts

Hi Gary,

Thank you for your replies.

I have a better understanding now.

One more question- when I compared the 2 dragon kits Panther F and Panther II, I realized the arrangement of the road wheels of Panther II is different from the usual Panther F and Gs

http://www.ipmsusa2.org/reviews2/mil-veh/kits/cyberhobby_35_panther2/cyberhobby_35_panther2.htm

http://www.missing-lynx.com/reviews/german/cyberhobby6382reviewcs_1.html

Is the difference due to Panther II using an altogether different hull (shortened hull of King tiger)?

Sorry if I made things more confusing.

Thank you
Kiong

I hadn't noticed the difference in wheel spacing. It looks like the Panther II has the last road wheel spaced further back. Note that the Dragon kit and the drawings in the Panther book are, I believe, wrong. They show the last two road wheels further back but a photo of the actual Panther II chassis in the Panther book shows only the last road wheel is further back. I don't know if the drawings in Panzer Tracts 5-4 have the same error.

Oops. I made the assumption that the left and right sides were symmetrical and that may not be the case. The line drawing in the Panther book shows the left side and the photo I was referring to shows the right side.

To be sure, no turret was ever designed for the Panther II. The Dragon Panther II turret was based on a wartime concept drawing that showed the difficulty of mounting an 88mm gun, given the size of the turret ring. So it is a lot of assumption. The engine deck is also quite incorrect, as the Panther II engine deck had a configuration resembling Tiger II (Perhaps E-50?)

The innovations for the hull design of the Panther II project were however adopted in the production of Panther G. Panther F meanwhile had thicker armor and simpler production features than Panther G; superficially however, it still resembled Panther G.

The Panther II was a 1943 project which was canceled. It was unique in dimensions, being neither a Panther nor Tiger hull. It had enhanced armor protection, and was intended to use as many Tiger components as possible to simplify production and spare parts supply in the field. The project was canceled before a final turret design was approved, though the recent Panzer Tracts title has drawings of the provisional turret (essentially a stretched Panther turret). It is also possible that it might have acquired one of the Schmalturm turret designs had it gone into service, but this is speculative. Dragon's 1993 kit is a very poor representaion, both in dimensions and detail. It has Dragon's early and incorrectly shaped Schmalturm with the planned 88 mm gun intended for late 1945 (and never officially scheduled for this tank). The engine deck has Panther G style air grills, when it should have Tiger II grills (these can be swiped from any junked King Tiger kit, even the Tamiya 1975 version).
The Panther F was essentially a Panther G with a Schmalturm turret and minor detail changes to the G model hull, notably a wider section of enhanced roof armor ahead of the turret ring,and "lift and slide" style hatches for the driver and radio man. Steel wheels had been tried on a small batch of Panther G tanks in September, 1944, but the narrow spacing of the paired steel wheels caused excessive breakages of the track guide teeth, so steel wheels were discontinued pending a redesign of the track (which never came to pass).
The first Cyber Hobby Panther F kit included rubber rimmed wheels, as no steel wheels were onhand at the assembly plant in May, 1945, so any tanks assembled there would presumably have had the earlier type (records do not indicate any Panther F tanks were actually delivered, though at least three F hulls were on the production line when the Russians walked in). The newer Dragon rerelease of the F kit includes a set of steel wheels, assuming that the steel wheels would have eventually been used, with or without a new track, but that is speculative.

Hi guys,

Gary, thanks so much for your reply, I have learn something new, the road wheels may not be symmetrical on both sides...

Don and Gerald, many thanks for the very detailed clarifications on the 2 types of tanks, esp on the mysterious Panther II- The unique panther II hull explains for the different arrangement and configurations of the road wheels in the 2 kits.

Seems to be that there is no confusion over panther II and F anymore for me.

Cheers
Kiongs