panzer

panzer, series of battle tanks fielded by the German army in the 1930s and ’40s. The six tanks in the series constituted virtually all of Germany’s tank production from 1934 until the end of World War II in 1945. Panzers provided the striking power of Germany’s panzer (armoured) divisions throughout the war.

In the period following World War I, the German army had been prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles from using tanks. After Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, however, the army began to rebuild its tank forces, secretly at first and then openly from 1938 on. This late reentry into tank manufacturing actually conferred a distinct advantage on the German army, which entered World War II without being hampered by masses of obsolescent tanks, as was the case with France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. The German army began issuing specifications for its first tank, the Pz. I, in late 1933, and specifications for models II through IV were issued in the following three years.

Pz. I

The Pz. I was a light tank intended as a training vehicle for the new panzer divisions until the more powerful Pz. II, III, and IV tanks could be put into service. The Pz. I went into production in 1934. It was lightly armed, with two 7.92-mm machine guns mounted on its turret, and was likewise lightly protected by armour only 15 mm thick. The tank weighed 5.4 tons, had a top road speed of 39 km (24 miles) per hour, and was manned by a crew of two. The Pz. I first saw combat in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), and an improved version, the IB, was used in large numbers by the German army in the invasions of Poland (1939) and France (1940). The lightly armed and armoured IB performed adequately in these campaigns because it was used in massed formations and because opposing forces made poor use of antitank weapons. By the time Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the IB’s vulnerability to light artillery and heavier enemy tanks had rendered it obsolete for any role except reconnaissance. About 2,000 Pz. IBs were built, of which about 1,450 fought in the campaign against France in 1940.

Pz. II

The Pz. II was larger and more heavily armed and armoured than the Pz. I, but it was still a light tank. It was nevertheless the mainstay of the panzer divisions in the first two years of the war, because of delays encountered in building the more powerful Pz. III and IV. The Pz. II went into full production in 1937. It carried a 20-mm gun and one machine gun and was protected by armour with a maximum thickness of 30 mm. The tank weighed 10 tons, had a top road speed of 40 km (25 miles) per hour, and was manned by a crew of three. The German army used about 1,000 Pz. IIs in each of the invasions of Poland, France, and the Soviet Union. By early 1942, however, the Pz. II was clearly outgunned by Soviet and British tanks armed with 50- or 75-mm weapons. To remedy this, the IIF version of the tank was equipped with a larger gun and thicker armour, but its combat performance in Russia and North Africa was disappointing, partly because its six-cylinder engine could not cope with the tank’s increased weight. With its design limits reached, production of the Pz. II was discontinued at the end of 1942. More than 3,500 Pz. IIs were manufactured, with the later models specifically designed for use as reconnaissance vehicles.

Pz. III

The first medium tank developed by Nazi Germany was the Pz. III, which did not enter active service in large numbers until 1939. The Pz. III was initially armed with a 37-mm antitank gun and two machine guns. It weighed about 20 tons, had a top road speed of 40 km (25 miles) per hour, and carried a crew of five. About 100 Pz. IIIs fought in the Polish campaign and about 350 in the invasion of France. The need for greater firepower and more protection was apparent by 1941, so newer versions were given a 50-mm gun and fitted with armour 30–50 mm thick. The Pz. III could accommodate these improvements because it had been designed with a larger turret and a 12-cylinder, 300-horsepower engine. The 1,500 Pz. IIIs that took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 outfought most Soviet tanks but were in turn completely outclassed by the new Soviet T-34, which had a lethal 76.2-mm gun, sloping armour, and excellent speed and mobility. Even Pz. IIIs fitted with a high-velocity 50-mm gun and protected by armour 50–70 mm thick could not cope with the T-34, so the tanks were taken out of service on the Eastern Front, though they continued to fight in the Mediterranean theatre into 1943. By the time production was halted early that year, about 5,660 Pz. IIIs had been built.