Good evening,

I know,that the French Army used in the post war phase after WWII the PzKpfw V Panther and another, maybe more german vehicles. So,I like to know,why they used german AFVs. Could they decided themselfes,which vehicles they want to use,or were a lot of intact Panthers captured in France, so they decided to use them? Or they reason for it was,that the Panther was better then the Shermans?

I appreciate any helps and say thanks,Nils.

I am also interested in the topic, but have not delved very deeply into it.

I dont think they used exclusively Panthers, and as for a reason..

I'm guessing it was becasue they had a bunch left sitting around and were free at that point.

I did remember reading somewhere that the French had the same problems with final drive/transmission reliability and their use did not last very long.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

Mike

Hello,

I don't know in detail the panthers story in french army, but I've read in this forum that there were Panther in the war frenches leaded against vietminh in Indochina. This war lasted 9 years between 1945 and 1954.
I know also french rapidly developped their own tank around 1960.
To answer your question, I think they used panthers because so many were left in France after the german retreat. But you could also say French had tons of shermans after the war provided by the 2nd french armored division of Leclerc. So I guess we continued to use Panther due to their higher capacities...

Best regards guys,
Julien

A couple of French units were equipped with Panthers for a short time after the war. Lack of spares and all the usual Panther problems meant they soon got discarded

French Panthers

The Indochina Panther is a source of controversy, but appears to be a myth (unless you want to sell the Pink Panther punchline )

David

The French were clearly very interested in the Panther as its design heavily influenced some of their own post war designs, specifically the French AMX-50 Tank as can be seen on the atchung panzer website:

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/pz4.htm#panther

The site also says how France weren't the only country to use them after the war, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia also used them.

This clearly attests to the high regard held for the Panther and the quality of the tank (and therefore the T-34 it was designed on which was also used for years after the war).

James

Hi,

very interesting. I did not know,that so many countries used the Panther in the post war years. Also that France send Panthers to Indochina,propably it is a myth? Maybe somebody knows more?

Regards,Nils

France in the immediate postwar period had a mixed bag of Sherman tanks, mostly M4A2s, but they were soon re-quipped with newer late-model M4A1s, including some with HVSS suspension. They also received the M36B2 tank destroyer (the diesel version with roof armor retrofitted). However, in the early Cold War, the Soviets had large numbers of IS-2 and IS-3 Stalins on the inter-German border, and the French wanted something that could deal with them on a more equal basis (the tank destroyers were vitually unarmored). The US was not exporting Pershings at that time, nor were the British exporting Centurions, so the French Army reconditioned enough Panthers to equip two armored regiments. Once the M47 Patton became available, such measures were no longer needed.
A single Panther was sent to Indochina for evaluation purposes, but was found to be unsuitable for the terrain, and M36B2 tank destroyers were deployed instead. The Panther was abandoned near the Cambodian border and may still be there, unless some enterprising Vietnamese scrap dealer has gotten to it (it was still present in 1969).

Hi All,
When I did some research on the subject (in order to build a Panther ausf A in French markings), I found it was mainly due to the fact that the French industrial base had not recovered from the war and that large numbers of tanks were needed. Since there were plenty of abandoned Panthers inside France, not to mention alot in the French occupational zone, it was cheap way to augment the French [auto-censored]nal. Remember, the Panther was still a viable tank up into the the 1950's (if somewhat thinly armored). While IS heavies might have made for a problem, the T-34's that comprised the majority of the Russian armor formations did not. I fear that the Vietnamese Panther is more myth than anything else, as no photos have appeared to date from any source. Too bad, it would have made a great model.

Regards,
Georg