All,

Having just completed another 1/35 Tiger 1 on the heels of a 1/35 Panther G, I was kind of surprised to notice that the Panther appears to be substantially larger than the Tiger 1, at least in terms of 'bulk' size. I know that the 'medium' versus 'heavy' designations were based on tank weight, and the Tiger 1 and 2 tanks were substantially heavier than the Panthers, but has anyone commented previously on this apparent size thing? I'm guessing that when the Allies came up against Panthers, from a purely aesthetic perspective (read: intimidation factor), the Panther would have generated a greater 'fear factor' than a Tiger 1, if not a Tiger 2. Thoughts?

I compared two tiger hulls with two panthers and the panther is bigger. Looking it up on one site the Tiger is 8.45 meters long and the Panther is 8.86 so the Panther is a bit longer. I wonder if they'd scaled them properly. As far as weight, the Tiger had much thicker armor all around which counts for the weight difference.

The Tiger was a slab sided ingot of armor with a massive 88mm gun and that would make more of an impression on its enemies where the Panther was all angles with a smaller 75mm gun and the allies had 75mm guns so it might not seem as intimidating.

They called it Tiger Fever, not Panther Fever.

This is completely subjective but having never stood next to a tiger or a panther, i was surprised at how small the tiger ii at la gleize was when I visited there. I just assumed it would be enormous and it just wasn't.

Never understood why the Panther was classed as a medium tank when it weighed over 15 tonnes more than the Sherman and nearly 20 over the T34.

Maybe the German designers used their own weight classifications rather than those of other countries in the interests of consistency.

Yeah I've walked round Panthers at Bovington and at the Littlefield collection when it was there. That tank is massive!

Another vehicle that surprised me in person is the Sdkfz 7 - again so tall, so bulky! It always seemed smaller than tanks in model form.

When the Americans first encountered the Panther, they also thought it was a heavy tank and would be built in the same numbers as the Tiger. It came as a nasty surprise when they discovered it was a replacement for the Mark 4, hence the sudden realisation that the M4 was badly outmatched, and 76mm gun versions which had been unwanted because of the logistics difficulties were suddenly in demand. The British realised this earlier hence the rush to get the Firefly into service prior to D-Day

The name "Tiger" was better known than "Panther," which, when encountered was usually just identified in US reports as a "Mark V." Identification of enemy equipment was very poor among average soldiers. Panthers in photos were almost invariably miscaptioned as "Tigers" by the photographers. Even Panzer IV's were sometimes dubbed Tigers, and any self-propelled 88 mm gun (Nashorn, Jagdpanther) was a "Ferdinand," despite the fact that they served only on the eastern front and in Italy.

The Panther's 75 mm gun was more deadly than the Tiger's 88, due to its superior muzzle velocity, though at normal engagement ranges (800 yards), the difference was academic. The King Tiger's gun was a better match (its gun was 71 calibers long, vs 70 for the Panther).

It shouldn't be surprising that Panthers and Tigers were similar in size, as they shared the same engine and had comparable transmissions. Regarding width, this was dictated by the width of standard railroad flatcars, so a King Tiger is the same width as a Panther, but about a third longer, to accommodate a larger turret ring. Tigers and King Tigers had sets of special narrow transportation tracks, so they would fit on the railcars.

That can't be right. IIRC, it had superior penetration to the Tiger I's L56 gun, but the penetration of the KT's L70 was noticeably better.

Edit: Could have sworn the original post stated something else, but maybe I'm just getting old or was posting under influence.

Not sure it mattered on the Western Front, as the Allies had nothing that could withstand any of the three guns at normal combat ranges. (Might have mattered more against the Soviets though...)

IIRC I read somewhere that Tiger crews often used simple HE against US and British tanks because it still penetrated, and went Boom inside.

Staven Zaloga's Osprey book on Tiger v Pershing states that in his opinion the Tiger 11 was wrongly deployed on the Western Front as both the Panther and Tiger 1 could penetrate all British and American tanks and Tiger 11 would have been better deployed to the Eastern Front to cope with the IS series of tanks.