German War Files - Panzer IV Heavy Tank 

I'm the same way A good strain of cannabis and a episode of rex's hanger or something else on history. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to go into a 7/11 store for a big gulp and buy a couple grams of some mexican gold or a strong indica. My favorite indica is DIESEL... RIGHT ON...😊

Good video ❤❤❤❤❤

Quite true. The 7th Armd Div in North Africa had 3 brigades with Nine tank regiments. The 7th support group had less than a battalion of infantry and some guns. The 7th SP gp was often sent on independent missions, leaving the armour without any support at all. The Germans also discovered that their encirclement operations required more infantry than their divs had, resulting in many Soviet units escaping. German Panzer mechanics often got into fights over spare parts at the depots.

Quite correct in my humble opinion. While Speer was producing panzers it was at the expense of spare parts supplied. To me it was a mistake, yes more actual complete panzers were produced but with little logistics to repair even small battle damages or from wear & tear of operations.

I can tell why upgraded Panzer IV was mistaken for a Tiger by the Allied tankers.

@@rafalIL29 I quite agree. From some aspects, especially at a distance and/or during foul weather, they'd be easy to conflate one for the other.

@@rafalIL29 - PzKwII, PzKwIII, PzKwIV, and PzKwVI were all of a kind. silhouettes of them all were nearly identical, especially under battle conditions.

And don't forget the uniforms, accouterments, weapons (such as the MP-40, STG-44, MG-34, MG-42), Stalhelm(the WW2 German helmet is just bad ass looking) and military medals were just Uber fucking cool too.

I like the Germans too they are pound for pound the most potent hard hitting army at the time till the numerical superiority of the Allied far outnumbered them by 1943

The Germans had an advantage during the 20s & 30s, because their military industrial complex had been completely dismantled as part of the Treaty of Versailles. Also, many of the established military 'old boys club' in place was eliminated. This made room for young, well-educated strategists to redesign the German military from the ground up, and they were able to include the lessons learned from WWI & the Spanish Civil War to develop better training, more strategically appropriate weapons, more tactics, better communications, and superior strategies for offensive & defensive warfare. On top of that, the German educational system was excellent, so the War Department had a large supply of very intelligent, creative, and dedicated men to train intensely. On the other hand, the Allied nations had return to democratic governments that were under great pressure to reduce military spending and downsize their military. Consequently, there was little money available for development & testing of new weapons, tactics, and so on...and many of the experienced generals etc had retired, so there was a lack of knowledgeable experienced leaders to ensure that the military was kept up to date. By the time 1939 rolled around, the British, Americans, French and most other Allied nations were woefully unprepared for fighting the sort of war that the Germans envisioned for Western Europe. A good example of this was when Christie invented and tested his new design for a track/suspension drive system for a tank, and discovered that it provided a good speed, a steady ride, and excellent durability when used over difficult terrain. Christie first offered the design to the American military, but - despite some very successful tests - the military did not adopt it for new tank designs. Christie then shopped his design around, and it caught the eye of the Russians, who were beginning to become an industrialized nation, and saw the design as one a Russian factory could realistically mass-produce. The Russians also recognized how Christie's design was ideally suited to the challenging conditions & difficult terrain that made up much of its land. So the Russians designed a few tanks using Christie's system, the BT-5 and BT-7, and eventually used it with the now iconic & decisive T34 tank. Arguably the best & most important tank of WWII owed much of its success to an American's design! So, the superiority of the German military in terms of tactics, organization, and overall strategies (but not in tanks, believe it or not) was very much a result of conditions of surrender laid out in the Treaty of Versailles, as well as the priority placed on education in German society.

It's quite impressive how much they did as little they have how long they hold it's the very good training and discipline of the Germans soldiers l do strongly believe

John Roberts come on the ss were murdering mongrells what sand hill you got your head stuck in

My dad would kick your ass

@croma81 Very Good Observation Hans!😁😂🤪😅👍

@@ert-wert What?

+Atanasije Simic Which, in a weird way, actually makes perfect sense. KV-1s were the last thing many Pz. IV's saw back in 1941-42.

because the smoke from the kv1's explosion after being penetrated by a 75mm kwk 40l/48 blinded them?

Atanasije Simic well spotted comrad!

Soviet bias scheiße

Atanasije Simic I like the uniforms

yereverluvinuncleber You. I like you.

then you must be heavy

Lmao

mate you cant pick up a pencil to save your life. its a heavy

*Walks Perfectly normal with Light Tank on back

I’ll take a Stug anyday! 😎👍🏽

This reply is StuG approved 👍

i bet it was a common sight in the 40s ;)

The "Tulip Tree" has nothing to do with tulips. It's a poplar.

Large production numbers? Since around 10 thousand Stug IIIs and around 9 thousand Panzer IVs were built.

@BekGrou PRIMUS more than 10000+ stugs were built.

In 1940 it was heavy.

Charles van Dijk no it was not

Satakarnak in 1940 it was the heaviest tank the Germans had. It was an infantry support tank with its short 75mm gun. True heavy tanks were manufactured after 1942. The French Char B was with 45 tons the heaviest tank the allies had in 1940.

Read the description. The poster of the video explains he knows it's a medium tank, but kept the original title that the video was originally published with.

Michael RedCrow Dafuq did I just read?

Not really. The German army was great but the Luftwaffe was average and the German navy was inferior. I think you are confusing Strategy and Tactics which is the same thing the Germans did. Their strategy was insane. Their tactics were excellent. They competently executed a hopeless war.

Some things nowadays make me wonder if it would've been better if Germany had won!

They’re not his videos 🙄

In 1935 Pz-IV didn't exist in Panzerwaffe , but became an experimental model by 1936 . In-fact they did not have 100 until 1938/39. At that time they had 7 Panzer Brigades with 14 Panzer Regiments and 28 Panzer Battalions. Maybe 3-PzIV per battalion.but problems with Panzer III ; meant no more than 5 Pz-III/IV per battalion. So the bulk of these tanks were 68 Pz-II Panzer [20L55] panzer battalion.plus maybe 39 Panzer I [mg]

@@paullakowski2509 in January 1934, Germany wrote the specifications for the Gross-traktor. In 1935 it was being developed as a heavy tank.

The Soviets thought the Nazis were lying to them when they said the Pz IV was there heaviest tank so I don't think it was heavy back then either. It was an infantry support tank not a heavy breakthrough tank or anything. The armor was quite light in the early models especially. Personally I think it's silly to call it a heavy at all. That's not directed at you just the title. But it's hard to find good videos on this workhorse tank compared to the later war ones so I'm happy to have it available.

'Zitadelle; the German Offensive against the Kursk salient' Mark, that's an exemplary work! Superb! 5*

Germany was too small to defeat all it's enemies whatever it did. Pick anything Germany did not have enough. Soldiers, oil, trucks, planes, boats.. Germany is smaller than Texas. The invasion of Russia was not even possible. German logistics could only go about 500 kilometers into Russia.

Whilst i agree that the air element was super important and that Goering constantly messed things up, it was the combined arms issue that made the bliz so effective.

If Goering had accepted requests for a long-range bomber to be designed, the Luftwaffe could have smashed every port, airstrip and vital piece of infrastructure in Britain. Combine this with an encirclement of U-Boats and Britain would have been left with no choice other than to surrender without terms - due to a rapidly dwindling food supply for its civilian population. Goering was a great fighter pilot during WWI, but he lacked foresight as a military strategist.

Uhh pretty sure the French tAnks were not as good as the other nation’s tAnks

why not use the panther hull it has good sloped armor with modified turret of the tiger or tiger b plus a more powerful engine and suspension for the turret

irsan pasaribu suspension problems,terrible reverse speed,heavy weight

+Imanol fuentesito Sounds like me i write random papers of how i would rather make a tiger or something. liek serously why now slope pz. 4 and tiger? At least they had MUCH better fighting compartment.

+Roman Gavrilov because that would made the production harder why did you think the german used box tanks

+irsan pasaribu Yes but soviets made tanks for max production and were mainly slope designs. Not trying to start a fight here.

WRONG. Kv-1 and t-34 were designed/start being produced BEFORE the pz4. In fact the russkies visited a couple of tank plants back in '36 or so, when they were still buddies, and asked the germans if they have anything heavier. They were amazed when germans said no, knowing they already have the kv-1. Check out "Panzer Leader" book, written by Guderian after the war. In light of that, pz 4 was a medium from the start, considering the russian behemoths available at the start of the war. Yes, it was the HEAVIEST tank the germans had at the time, but you can't really claim it was a heavy tank. Furthermore, Guderian states pretty clearly, pz1 and 2 were meant as training vehicles only, to train and study how a panzer division would act. He himself never expected to go to war in those vehicles. But Hitler gambled and push ahead with his plans (1 year ahead of time), they had no choice but using what they had: pz1 and 2's. Pz 3 and 4's were meant to be the actual vehicles for war, incorporating the lessons learned from operating pz 1's and 2's : bigger gun, bigger turret, radio operator, to name a few. Even before 1939, there were already blueprints and development ideas regarding a heavy tank. Those plans were accelerated after 1941, clash with soviet monsters shook the germans. Eventually those plans crystallized in px 5 and 6, panther and Tiger. Again, I highly suggest Guderian's book, find the facts from horse's mouth.

Well technically the Pershing is a medium tank

Zamolxes77 Youre looking at the situation through historical hindsight. At the time Pz4 first came out the germans wouldnt even have been aware that the KV series existed. So it was initially designated a heavy tank by the germans.

IWDvideoz By today's standards, yes, but along with the Sherman it was considered a heavy tank at the time.

***** Actually, the Sherman was built with mobility, cost, and manufacture time as a focus. US battle doctrine at the time was that tanks were to be used as Infantry support, not to take on enemy tanks. The enemy's tanks were supposed to be dealt with by tank destroyers. Once the "think tank" boys woke up and found that the enemy was not complying with their doctrine, it was too late to develop a new tank, so the "variants" were produced. The only aspect (IMO) in which the Sherman (and variants) were superior to German PzIV and PzV's (Panthers) were that they could be produced much faster.

you could possibly be right! if I remember correctly, I think Guderian advocated for this, and lost. It's been a long time since I read his book. :)

+James Lyons what I meant to allude to was Guderian wanted more IV.

Stcyr Belange You are as stupid as you look. Starting wars againest countries with WW1 arms and still using horse mounted cav. like Poland and many other countries is no great feat. the RUSSIAN TANKS WERE FAR SUPERIOR TO GERMAN TANKS. SIMPLER TO LEARN HOW TO OPERATE. AND LESS MAINTENANCE PROBLEMS.

Rudy Obgartel the Stug assault guns alone accounted for 30,000 Russian tanks destroyed..Not including the other german tanks

Stcyr Belange dont call it panzer mark 4. its not the fourth version of a already existing tank, its the fourth newely developed tank that the wehrmacht adopted. mark would be Ausführung in german. or short:ausf.

Prior to attacking Russia, the German's problem was a lack of tanks and inadequate tank design. After Kursk, the German's could have built all the StuG IIIs and StuG IVs and all the Panther & Tiger tanks they wanted, but by that point the war of attrition in Russia had taken its toll, and there was a profound lack of experienced well-trained Panzer crewman. There are many stories from the post-Normandy battles of Panzer units making terrible tactical blunders that resulted in more tanks & crews being lost than necessary - an indication that a lot of the best crews remaining on the Western Front had either been killed in France or had been sent to Russia to strengthen units there.

Thanks. I never really knew that and thought it applied mostly to the Luftwaffe and inexperienced pilots. It does make sense it would also apply to the tankers. In that light, the emphasis on panzerfaust production was a good strategy to take considering it required little training. However, It is amazing how Albert Speer kept production rolling at huge levels despite the bombings. Lack of fuel and experience were the weaknesses.

bg147 I agree that Speer worked miracles with Germany's industries, because even when Barbarossa began, the German armaments industry was not running anything near full tilt, unlike the Russian, British, Canadian, American, and Japanese industrial sectors, that pretty-well switched over to 100% military manufacturing when they declared war. In fact, IMHO, one of the the main reasons the Germans were defeated was due to the fact that on an industrial level, it didn't even get close to being fully mobilized for war until 1942 at the earliest.T he other 'big-picture' error that IMHO made Germany's defeat inevitable was that all of their training and equipment had been designed to fight a war with France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Baltic nations. Examples of their short-sightedness, (largely because Hitler never discussed his intentions regarding the United Kingdom, Russia, the Mediterranean nations, and North Africa with his generals & designers prior to 1939) include the fact that Germany never designed and built a four-engine strategic bomber like Great Britain (several, culminating in the Lancaster) and the USA (B17 & B29) did, They had a fabulous plane, the Condor, which would have fit their needs wonderfully, and some designers considered the possibility, but in the end, the German air force never had the 'reach' & bomb capacity it needed to destroy strategically important industries in western & northern England, or take out the many Russian factories & troop training cenres that were rebuilt a long way back from the front lines. Furthermore, German fighters did not have a long range and drop tanks were not developed ahead of time, which was a significant weakness in the Battle of Britain. Also, their artillery was outranged by the guns of every allied nation, which was not an issue in western Europe, but came back to haunt them on the Eastern Front. Finally, their vehicles and guns were not designed with cruel Russian winters or sandy African environments in mind. (there are other examples). So, while it is interesting & fun to debate the turning point of WWII in the European theatre, and discuss guns, tanks, infantry weapons, the poor timing for the start of Barbarossa, etc etc etc, in retrospect it is clear that some of the fatal mistakes the Third Reich made happened long before the very first shots were fired at the beginning of September 1939.

Great points. I think everyone was/is surprised when France was defeated with such speed. Actually, I think it imbued Hitler and others with a sense of invincibility which led to the nightmare in the East. I am wondering if the original war plans were more conservative than actual events which makes the planning look poor. Regardless, they were ill-equipped and should have known better. It is interesting that Hitler did not fully mobilize for war early on, I had read that before. The whole Battle of Britain thing is an interesting one. From a book I read, some German bombers hit populated areas by mistake... fog, etc. They were trying to hit an industrial target if I recall correctly. As you know, they had been focusing on RAF targets. Based on the author's findings, Hitler still held out hope for making peace with England and eventually focusing on the East. Plus, Hitler was opposed to bombing civilians at that point. He did not want civilians areas bombed. However, after the errant bombing, the RAF hit German civilian areas and well... the rest is history with Hitler switching from RAF command to London and ultimate defeat by the RAF. As you stated, the Luftwaffe was ill-equipped to fight that battle. There seemed to have been a number of unplanned events. The author was convinced that Hitler never intended to land troops in England, wanted to make peace, and turn on the Soviets. I don't know. It is impossible for me to imagine Churchill making peace. The civilian bombing put an end to that. I am just wondering if the many turn of events including having to bail out the Italians in North Africa and Greece resulted in a different war than planned. Off topic but I don't think most Americans truly understand what took place on the Eastern Front. The sheer magnitude of such a titanic battle is impossible to imagine. There has never been anything remotely like it. I have not seen a movie that does it justice... I wasn't there and wouldn't know, but movies on the topic seem lacking. Cross of Iron is ok, maybe Stalingrad, but American ones are not good.

blueznjazz123 I totally agree with most of your facts but i cant let you say germans got outranged....germans had by far the most ranged in terms of land units such as artillery and tanks. We didnt get outranged,,,just outgunned, we just didnt have the capabilities to keep up the ammonution and unit flow, to compete with the soviet union or the USA.

They thought they had enough already to win by Dec. '41. OOooopps!!

True, but that would not solve the lack of oil. They had to dock the majority of the U-Boat force to have enough fuel to invade the USSR.

Very true! Until 42 you could buy aluminum lasers at the store or bicycles! Can’t say why.

+tekis0 Panzerjäger Wanze i think.

+tekis0 It's a Borgward IV remote controlled demolition device. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgward_IV

@@ralphbernhard1757 dude.... you er kick ass!

THE DESCRIPTION IS WRONG.

The description is incorrect. .

Hell yeah! Taking out the Slayer of Beasts with a Panzer IV seems unbelievable!

mark newman The Sherman tank was also produces during the entire period of WWII, on the Allied side then! always improved upon as the PzKw IV.

Matilda II served for the whole war too

And the Panzer II, the Panzer 38t, and the T-34 (production began in 1940)

mark newman 6:1 Kill ratio????? Yeah good joke, no evidence at all of that M4 Sherman and T-34> Pz III and IV M26 Pershing> Panther IS-2> Tiger and Tiger II.

Patton3003 Actually no. The Sherman entered service in 1942, and first saw combat in Tunisia.

My dad would kick your ass

Cringe.

yep, this is the german war file intel that happened in world war II about the Panzer IV, and also about from the anime "Girls und Panzer" completely different, mostly students from other schools during their classes, they were studying about it and facts about world war II, I think. That's why I wasn't just watching the anime, also I were reading manga, the first manga I read its Girls und Panzer: Saga of Pravda and up next another Girls und panzer mangas "Phase ERIKA"

+Matchstick you are wrong.

John Bowman you don't know much about history then... go pick up a book

+John Bowman you just say he's wrong, giving no argument against him, just that he isn't right?

Sd.Kfz. 161 (PzKpfw IV medium tank with 75 mm L/24 main gun) On 11 January 1934, the German army wrote the specifications for a "medium tractor", and issued them to a number of defense companies. To support the Panzer III . . .

+Mats Hagglund and yet they liked it and planned to put a 17pdr in a T-34 must've really been terrible for them to be interested in that...

+Mats Hagglund you came out of left field with those crazy arse comments

Probably because it was cheap to produce and well it had quite good armor.

so the latter models of the panzer 4 didn't get stuck in the mud like the early ones did??

gman gm yes, they had Ostketten sometimes

+Roman Gavrilov Please, don't ve irevererent with the legendary tank that invded Europe, almost USSR and almost North Africa.

+Roman Gavrilov Wrong. The Panzer IV was one of the most advanced tanks of it's time. It was the Panzer IV that forced the Russians to invent the T-34 and the Americans to make the Sherman.

Joe Snow the t-34 and shermans were both built before both countries went to war

+Nick N. (Halokittens) Yep, too bad Germany's better tanks like the Tiger and the Panther chewed through the Shermans' armour like it was a god damned cookie XD

+Ryan Henderson We only saw the Tigers once, it involved FLATBED rr cars

the title isn't wrong, the Pz IV was considered a heavy tank at the start of the war before the tiger was put into serves. in fact it's not uncommon to see the germans designate armor like this. a good example would be that the germans classified the KV-1 as a super heavy tank at the time.

u fried up my mind....well ur true, just found about it when a read a book about tanks.......

Cherno Alpha Its like panzer III when it was fisht made it was counted as a medium tank but over time it became an light tank when it was pushed aside and replaced with the panzer IV

....................i dont need ur history lessons boy.........i got ma book about tanks through out history

Cherno Alpha The best way to learn is multiple sources of information!

He says it in the inscription

+Anton Andersson *description*

The Panzer III was a medium tank and I agree with that classification, but if you didn't know that and you saw that thing you'd swear it's a light tank, especially the first model with the cute 37mm gun. Same goes for the Panzer IV. It might have started as a heavy tank, but look at the thing and you would call it a medium. Even the German command realized that soon enough.

Daniel Sinks You know, if you watch this series' video, one for the Panther, they say Panther is medium, and this heavy... which makes absolutely no sense at all, why aren't they calling Panthers heavy tank? I mean, its much bigger than Pz. IV. Also, this video is the only video that calls Pz. IV a heavy tank.

DennisLego I watched the Panther video a while back, and they call it a medium because by the time the Panther was built, German designers realized that the Panzer IV wasn't a heavy by any means and re-classified it. If the Panther would have exited before then (which would have been impossible because it was made to counter the T-34), it would have been a heavy as well.

Daniel Sinks but the question, how can you be so sure that it was originally a heavy tank? Can't find the info that Pz. IV was classified as heavy tank.

DennisLego I'm just going off the video and my own judgement. Think about it, the video mentioned that the Panzer IV was meant as support for the Panzer III, which is entirely true. It also mentioned that it was the heaviest tank they had at the time, also true. Whether or not German command called it a heavy I can't confirm, but it would certainly make sense if you look at it from the right angle.

You sir; know your history and tactics!

.

+The Tank Geek Well, it was the heaviest tank the Germans had until the introduction of the Tiger.

+Degrelle Holt it still classified as a medium

+Fight Me как вы различаете танки легкие, средние ,или тяжелые?

Marwan Musa It was always a Medium tank. even guderian calls it medium all the way

Yep! I just had to have one, but doing well with it is hard work!

What Nerf? Playing the Pz. IV on a regular basis and it's performing incredible with the 10,5cm Gun and HE Ammo (although not historical correct)

weather in russia is so unpredictable... Who would have thought that winter in russia is cold :O

wrong, in the operation Typhoon versus Moscow, the divisions panzer are exhausted days before the storms of snow, out of supply and remplacements

juan luis argemi martin but the winter sure as hell didnt help longestics

Domo Von Imperium It didn't help, but it didn't save anyone either.

Never said it saved the russians, It was a serious blow to both factions, but the axis got a worse brunt due to russia's equipment being literally engineered to survive it

XDDDDDDDD

same here by the way, do u watch bohemian eagle?

***** Duh! :D He`s awesome!

***** I do and subscribed to his channel.

scheiße

The Germans used stabilizers on some Panzer III 3.7cm and 5.0cm L44 guns. These used big gyros (about 6 or 8 inches) to directly stabilize the gun but couldn't be scaled for bigger weapons. The American stabilizer used small gyros that had silverstat electrical contacts that deflected a hydraulic jet that operated piston valve to level the gun. The gun and sight were mechanically linked. For Panther V Ausf F and Tiger II a system was planed in which the optics were fully stabilized and the gun was hydraulically driven to follow. A circuit then used the angular velocity of the gun to fire the gun so that the projectile exited the barrel at just the right time. The overlapping long travel suspension of the Tiger and Panther was meant to allow them to fire on the move. You will note the majestic ride in motion pictures of the big tanks.

Agreed. Naval combat is a truly astounding thing. The sheer destructive power and lethality is staggering

Show me how a Battlecruiser will take on with a Tank???? The Ship must wait until the Tank comes near the Coast it is, only my opinion, a little bit ridiculous... No?