The long awaited part 2 of three of the interior of Panther. Gunner and commander. NA Forum Thread: forum.worldoftanks.com/index.p... Asia thread: forum.worldoftanks.asia/index....
WoT should have a Chieftan voice over setting that says "oh my god the tank is on fire" and a "that was close" or critical hit should be "We've caused a serious emotional event" and maybe a "the interfaced with the turret" for injuries.
After you commented on how narrow the field of view on the gunner's sight is and on the lack of secondary vision devices, it occurs to me the over-engineered azimuth ring might actually not be quite as unnecessary as first thought. Looks like the commander might be the one to tell the gunner exactly where to turn the turret to find the target, using that azimuth ring for reference. It sounds like a very Germanic (and clunky) way of doing things, though.
It is far less efficient than just saying "traverse left. Steady....on". If you still want to give a clock reading for the gunner to traverse to on his own for whatever reason, you don't need an azimuth ring to know which part of the clock scale you're currently at.
i cant say how accurate the azimut indicator is but if the tc can give a 11.5 idication and the gunner can use that that would be far more accurate than just giving the general direction. a periscope would still be superior but at least to me it seems an experienced crew could be quite fast with this system
Apologies if this is mentioned elsewhere, but, from memory, there is a lot more to that azimuth mechanism. I thought the point was that the commander could override and align the turret to wherever his cupola was looking.
This looks surprisingly "clean" inside, not referring to the excellent condition. But in most other tanks you showed there are running pipes, wires, racks, more racks, handles, things all along the inside of the turret (I always wondered that any kind of hit on the turret would damage the wires or pipes). I guess some of racks are removed here but beside that it looks so empty.
It looks like just like that. All king of german tanks at that era looks empy compare to some allied desings. It always noted when they tested captured german tanks.
This Panther seems quite modern, it has features that the Leo 1A5 I served on has, like the swinging cupola, the mechanism is pretty similar. We also had a tzf coaxial sight, but it was only our secondary sight. We did of course have a stabilized sight on the turret roof, the tzf was mostly used to see if we were able to bear the gun on our targets in hull down positions
Never ever stop with your sense of humour. The single biggest reason why i do not watch Richard Cutland's videos are because of the lack of any sort of amusing ramblings.
Interesting. As someone who was on M-60A3's in the 80's, the more I learn about the Panther the more I'd have rather been on a Panzer IV H if I'd been a German tanker.
Yeah I visited littlefields over many years while this panther went from a rusted hulk to something that was like it came off the production line. They did great work. RIP littlefield.
Excellent, thanks Mr. Moran & The Littlefield Collection, I gather a lot of editing might've been involved, all's hoping Pt.3 will be up soon for this most awaited of Cat videos :)
Parts 1 and 2 have made the mighty Panther seem almost mortal. Thank you for all your effort in making these videos. From an 0352 anti-tank T.O.W. gunner (ret'd). :)
As you probably know they did change the commander's cupola on the panther. This was actually due to the fact that fires in the crew compartment would cause the hatch to expand and seal the crew inside. Pretty grisly
Love all the video's of all the tanks you guys have done a great job. My Grandmother's brother was a Tiger 1 tank Commander of the on the Eastern Front during WW2 he didn't survive to see the end of the war.
Huh, I was inside the Panther as well. Of course, I never noticed all the technical stuff you said because all I got was an overview. Thanks for pointing out all the gizmos that I missed! Especially the commander's hatch.
Thanks for the excellent lecture and tour of my favorite. How amazing that Jacques Littlefield was compelled to restore this incredible specimen to factory new condition. I so appreciate it. One question: Why is it that when the gunners sight is changed from high magnification to low magnification, the shot changes from: interior facing gunner. To: exterior shot, front glacis plate, drivers vision port opening?
Note, that the Chieftain didn't knew for what the Turret Azimuth Indicator is exactly used for. But he understood this in his other (later) videos, like for Pz III; The Azimuth Indicator is used in Leopard 1 and 2 as well - for the Commander to guide the Gunner (who also has an Azimuth indicator) in a short time on the target.
There is a difference between the gunner’s azimuth indicator and that of the TC. The gunner needs one, the TC certainly doesn’t need one as non-specific as the one in Panther
@@TheChieftainsHatch There is a reason why they did it this way - both Commander and Gunner need an indicator - for the commander to be able to lay the gunner fast and precisely on target. It isn't about the turret position itself. Also: The commander couldn't see the gunner's indicator from his cupola, hence the need for two. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zngycQmFhhQ.html (7:53) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-q3JRx4PkDYg.html (9:40)
Your comments about the closed hatch are really interesting to me. We were always taught SOP was to always have it closed, unless it was really necessary to have it open.
The editor needs a talking to, for some reason the driver's visor wobbles when you change gunner sight magnification and the second half of the video is kaput :P
Two points 1) I found that 14.5mm Russian AT Rifle round to be much more effective than I thought. I thought it was useless against Panzer III's and above. But even early Panthers being vulnerable ? That was a surprise. Of course, the PTRD and PTRS (and any KPV's that made it to the war) were useful to the end of the war versus anything the Aufklarungs Abteilung ("Reccnnaisance - literally Enlightenment - Battalion". German practice reserved "Battalion" for units organic to a regiment while Abteilung was used for non-regimental formations) and against the Panzer Grenadiers halftracks. (even though most PzGren were carried by trucks - even more vulnerable. The Panzer divisions had one battalion of half-track APC's with the rest motorized and the Panzer Grenadier divisions consisted entirely of motorized troops with one battalion of either tanks or assault guns. BTW, the US Army had enough medium truck companies to motorize every infantry division (and then some) and could attach either a separate tank or tank destroyer battalion - or both - to each. In effect the US Army had 67 Panzer Grenadier Divisions and - given the right terrain - employed them as such)2) Transmission maintenance - One thing that perhaps many people don't know is the Imperial and Nazi era German Army was organized for rapid, decisive wars - see 1866 and 1870. This worked in Poland and the West in 1940. If failed in the Desert, Russia and in the West in 1944-45.Because of this Das Heer was "a mile wide and an inch deep". It didn't have the infrastructure for a sustained war and I think it's tank designs reflected this lack of attention to what the US Army calls "RAM" (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability). The odds were the vehicle would last long enough for short campaign and the ones that broke down would be shipped back to Germany over their excellent railroads for repairs at well equipped depots or even the factory
I think the Azimuth Indicator is a benefit under Battle Conditions, maybe under darker conditions. The commander is able to communicate the positions without taking his eyes off the target. A look down means you could loose sight of a target under less ideal conditions.
2:00 I assume the degree indicator is there to function as a simple hunter-killer-system. If the commander spots something he can call out 3 numbers, the gunner can aim at whatever that is and in the meantime the commander keeps commanding.
7:50 editing mistake: when he flips the lever to switch the sight from low magnification to high, someone who was editing the video stuck in footage of the driver's direct vision hatch flipping upwards on the front glacis plate. The magnification lever doesn't do anything visible on the outside of the tank, it just switches lenses inside the optic. And the gunners sight is in the mantlet, not in the glacis plate, obviously. Someone must have gotten mixed up. And at 8:50 when he's talking about the foot pedals, when he is talking about the traverse rocker, the red coaxial foot trigger pedal is the most visible thing. Then he says "to the left of the rocker is the coax trigger" and the the screen starts showing a shot of the traverse rocker! The big flat textured plate is the traverse rocker. The red pedal/lever to the left of it is the coax trigger.
IIRC the lack of a paronamic gunner sight is a major flaw French has pointed out after testing the panthers. Now I see, the gunner is pretty much blind
So did the Germans it seems as the Panther Ausf F was to introduce a gunners panoramic sight, but none where finished by the time the war ended, though a few hulls where being worked on. Though this was to replace the sight through the turret front plate, though the Ausf F also was to have a range finder
When you said the oh! bugger the tank is on FIRE! Made me think of the Pershing vs Panther Cologne war film footage. Maybe that is why that Panther's Commander didn't make it.
He did make it. He is the first one out. In fact, he told his daughter after the war the reason he didn't immediately order his gunner to fire on the M-26 is because he didn't recognize the tank to be an enemy tank.
That raw footage of the Panther getting hit in Cologne shows the commander getting out of the top hatch relatively quickly. Looks like he had it all the way open to begin with. Which is probably what they ended up doing most of the time.
Not really. On the sovjet front they have to close the hatch relative often. The russies had a loot of foot troops. mortals, planes, etc. Even Otto Carius mentions that he had to close the hatch often for these reasons
I have to say that "significant emotional event" is probably one of the greatest sayings of all time. I put it right up there with some of the great Winston Churchill quotes. lol
Hi Chieftain, your assumption of the "open Hatch" philosophies of german Tank commanders is absolutely correct. Otto Carius wrote in his book this was also a reason for the big success against the Russian Tankers on the eastern Front, who closed their hatch when battle started and opened it again only if battle was over. If they were still able to do so ... He wrote it was a sign of a good commander to open the hatch from time to time also during battle , or keep it open as often as possible to get an overview and also to hear what happens around, which is absolutely impossible when the Hatch is closed. Especially this was necessary to discover PAKs which were good camouflaged nearly invisible for a Tanker. But when he looks around with a open hatch he could see also the flash of the shot out of the corner of the eyes. Btw. to be fair to the russian Tankers there was obviously an order to keep the Hatch closed and, it´s difficult to believe, there are reports from german side they found shot russian Tanks were the Hatch was welded !
The way the hatches on the early T-34s opened the commander would be very exposed if he wanted to see forward, virtually out of the tank, which might explain things.
As to ~Emergencia! escape methods, some of the more adventurous panzerwaffe crews/T.C's employed was the near complete removal of the Panthers (Tiger1's/Tiger II) cannon recoil guard & the panthers huge spent shell casing box (Provided ya had a bottle of top-shelf booze & knew the right PanzerWerkStatt Compaany mechaniac, one with 'spare time' for 'Needless' additional projects on his hands..;) -The LARGE box itself removed & modified with thin sheet steel/metal to retain the small air compressor @ the commanders footrest, the compressor providing air to blow propellant fumes clear of barrel/chamber/breech. Couple grab handles for the loader welded on the turrets inside wall, they seldom if ever fired on the move, but after hitting the 'Loaded' button, the loader would grab both handles n' suck in gut, kindve like Abrams MBT loaders do today... -On the T.C's/Gunners side they would cut/unbolt/remove the back end, ejecting spent shell pad on the left sides recoil guard plate, just to rear of the recoil meter located on guard plates inside face. At least in the Panthers case, keeping most, if not all of the left side plate kept the T/C's right arm & side MUCH safer. But in Tiger1 & 2's, it could be cut right behind the 'Refill BraunArk/recoil cylinder fluid' meter. Still leaving a bit of physical protection, but depending on particular tank model (Panther/T1/T2/?) such a mod seriously up the turret basket area for more rapid emergency egress for the crew, even hull positions if they face trouble up front for any reason. Theres a tank museum/Bovington "Inside the panther" vid here on YT, or maybe it was a Tiger 2? That tanks cannon is missing said recoil guards, it helps to demonstrate & physically show how it opens up the turret. Ive read a few accounts of crews in the heavies that did just such a modification. It may heighten danger a bit, but Im certain the practice saved more than a few lives during a burning type of situation?
Are you planning any more films of your lectures or another Think Tank event? Keep going back and watching those :-D Even if not, the channel's fantastic!!!
The panthers TZF offers the gunner a field of view of around 24 to 27 degrees. The early Sherman's had a field of view 6 degrees and it never gets better then 14 degrees during the war. So you could say, that the Sherman gunner had a bigger need for a secondary sight.
+TheChieftainWoT I think the gunners sight selection clip has been confused with (a cut down timewise of) the drivers hull vision hatch opening... sorry for pointing this out, I hope it can be be fixed at some point for future historical value.
Glad to help, albeit I wish for better reasons to be conducive to yoursel(f/lves)... Perhaps in another 3 - 6 weeks +, if you/WG/cameraperson still has backups - or its in the editing files for pt3?
Tried looking again at German war films and training films of Panthers it looks like most Commanders just kept hatch in overhead position and not locked down. As for cranking up the hatch was surprised there was not a spring to push hatch up when released so all Commander had to do was unlatch and rotate with spring doing the raising. Looking at other German WW2 tanks and most do not seem to have a periscope for Gunner so this does not seem to be just a Panther thing. I imagine a trained loader would have worked out a way to reload rounds quickly.
Could the commander's Azimuth ring be needed/required to get the gunner nearly exact on target? Since the gunner has so little view of the outside world, the commander's instructions would need to be spot on to get a target into the gunner's sight.
i just happened to think, the tortoise at bovington is in good condition isn't it? that might be a fun one, easy to film, pretty rare, and a definite favourite among the players.
The only time I would close the upper hatches on a tank (besides to protect from inclement weather) is if I was under artillery or mortar fire, if I was in an urban combat scenario, or if I was in a close-in fight with enemy infantry. There is not much danger except from lucky shots in any other situation, almost all incoming fire is going to be horizontal. Unless a airburst goes off overhead, or a enemy in a second story tosses a grenade or fires a burst from overhead, or a gang of troops swarms over the tank (or gets a lucky grenade toss from alongside), there isnt much danger of anything coming down through the hatch.
Honestly, I can't think of how it would decrease the time by any particular amount. The fact that they were willing to remove out without changing the gunners optics also indicates the feature to be rather non-critical
TheChieftainWoT long text following: first of all, I've never been inside a Panther, so I can just guess from what I saw in your video. I think the commanders indicator is assembled strangely with the readout being behind his right shoulder, same as the gunners (you mentioned it needs calibration), it would be logical to have 12 o clock straight in front of you when the turret faces into the same forward direction as the hull. In modern tanks the commander has the ability to preselect the next target and/or engage it if the gunner is busy. With the azimuth indicator available for both, commander and gunner, but turret control only for the gunner and the very limited view of the gunner, the commander can spot the next target and call out it's position quick and precise while the gunner is still engaging another target. I think that's way faster than just "Left, a bit more, further, further,... got it" There may be many reasosns why they didn't assemble it on some tanks and came back to it later on again, they were in war and Germany had pretty significant resource problems. For example in St.Valentin they produced 2845 Panzer IV during 1944, despite heavy bombing from allied forces. One month without a nice to have but not essential feature on a tank will cause a significant number of tanks without this feature. They couldn't just build along in a nice environment like Americans did in their Sherman factories. Therefor I argue that a missing feature on a German tank is no indication of it being overengineered or obsolete, most likely it just wasn't available at the time due to war reasons and they had to send the tanks to the front as soon as they were able to shoot and drive.
That's well and good, but the point is that for a rough approximation, the commander doesn't normally need to look to an azimuth indicator in order to tell his gunner what direction on the clock he needs to scan. I seemed to do quite well without an azimuth indicator. My gunner had one, not that he needed to refer to it often either. It really is very simple to figure out what direction your turret is facing, either by reference to the moving ground, or by looking at your feet and comparing with the hull. The advantage to such a device for the TC is limited.
TheChieftainWoT well, of course it's not essencial and it's a drill and experience thing, but calling out 5:15 you see above your periscope and cranking to said value is definitely helping for new crews and they were most likely newly weds in there with an average battle surviveability of just a few minutes for tanks during WW2 the gun seems to be unstabilized, so shooting while on the move is no reliable option and the buttocks feeling for direction is missing while stationary, the indicator is right in front of your face, to see the hull below your feet you need to look down, where your view is blocked by the gunner and the recoil guard
You are very knowledgeable and have a pleasant cadence to your speech. For me I find the music a little too loud. I'm trying to pay attention to what you are saying
how good is the overall view for the commander compared to lets say a sherman and t34? that, other than the vision slits, also had revolving periscopes
at 9:58/9:59 what are those circular holes in that box object behind the elevation control? It looks like a ready rack but that looks like the most awkward place possible for the loader to have to reach for ammo.
It is interesting to see that in a bail out situation the crew of a panther would most likely die in the burning tank. "Panther the kraut cooker". Only one or two crew would be saved if the tank brewed up quickly.
Otto Carius in his recollections, had the hatch opened on his Tiger 90% of the time. He said that the soviets being buttoned up in their tanks most of the time got them killed.
Im confused. When the chieftain moves the sight in the gunners postion it shows an outside view. Surely this is the drivers visor moving ( front headlight and zimerite in view) and not a gunnery sight?
burningphoneix With the Centurion, a system similar to the M4, was introduced. However from the Churchill and Centaur onwards, the gunner got a periscope solely for vision.
I don't see what the problem was with the panther gunner's sight field of view being 25 and 14 degrees when the gunner's sight on the Sherman was, depending on the model gun sight, either 12 and 19 degrees or fixed at 13 degrees. It looks like the gunner's sight on the panther was pretty good in terms of field of view compared to the US sights. Similar numbers appear for the British gunner sights.
Thing is that Panther only had a telescopic sight. The Sherman had a periscope as welll for the gunner, which enabled him to observe and aquire the targer quicker.
That FoV was the issue. With no more open sight the gunner had serious issues finding the target in the sight in the first place. Imagine trying to find individual points with a high power rifle scope without opening your other eye. It will dam near take ages.
Thats amazing so in that collection they all have functioning guns if wanted by owner/restorer and allowed by state laws. Thats pretty scary ,hope the shells are locked up in the wardrobe. Thanks
Wait, what? The rated it would penetrate an M4 at 100 yds, and a Churchill at 1,700 meters? That is a huge difference. Even aside from the fact that, according to wiki, the Churchill had thicker frontal armor than a Tiger I, how can you explain such a massive discrepancy between two tanks which should be in the same ballpark? Are you sure that that's not supposed to be 1,700 FEET or something?
Cheiftain, do you know what the field of view for the gunner was (degrees) at 1000m? The reason that I ask is because while it might be very narrow in that building, at 500 -1500m it's probably a lot better in the field of battle. So I was curious about what the field is?
28 degrees at low mag, 15 degrees at high. This is substantially better than the zoomed optics of the early M4 (But obviously not the unity sight), but not as broad as the sights of a late model M4.
A quick look at the drawings of the Ausf G indicates, no, they didn't change the optics. The Schmalturm was going to at least place the optic in the roof, turning it into a periscope, so the gunner could see when still turret-down, but that seems to be as far as it went.
Fantastic presentation and delivery as always, Chieftain. Whoever edits these though, needs to improve. When you demonstrate the gunner's sight magnification selector, it cuts to a clip of the driver's visor actuating!! That's just careless, that
man the commander looks like he has an EVEN BIGGER responsibility now if he's the one directing the gunner to point the gun to this azimuth or even the decision of buttoning up tight as a tick or not.
