Tanks in the German Army
This article deals with the tanks serving in the German Army throughout history, such as the World War I tanks of the Imperial German Army, the interwar and World War II tanks of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, the Cold War tanks of the West German and East German Armies, all the way to the present day tanks of the German Army of Bundeswehr.
Overview
The development of tanks in World War I began as an attempt to break the stalemate which trench warfare had brought to the Western Front. The British and French both began experimenting in 1915, and deployed tanks in battle from 1916 and 1917 respectively. The Germans, on the other hand, were slower to develop tanks, concentrating on anti-tank weapons.The German response to the modest initial successes of the Allied tanks was the A7V, which, like some other tanks of the period, was based on caterpillar tracks of the type found on the American Holt Tractors. Initially unconvinced that tanks were a serious threat, the High Command ordered just twenty A7Vs, which took part in a handful of actions between March and October 1918. They suffered from numerous design faults, and Germany actually used more captured British tanks than A7Vs. As it became clear that the tank could play a significant role on the battlefield, Germany began working on designs for both heavy and light tanks, but only a small number of prototypes were completed by the end of the War.
After the Armistice, all tanks in German hands were confiscated. Almost all were eventually scrapped, and the various postwar treaties forbade the former Central Powers from building or possessing tanks.
File:Mass demonstration in front of the Reichstag against the Treaty of Versailles.jpg|thumb|right|German demonstration against the Treaty of Versailles in front of the Reichstag building
On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Although he initially headed a coalition government, he quickly eliminated his government partners. He ignored the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles and began rearming, approving the development of many German tank designs he was shown.
The German Army first used Panzer I light tanks, along with the Panzer II, but the mainstays were the medium Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs which were released in 1937. The IV became the backbone of Germany's panzer force and the power behind the blitzkrieg. During the invasion of Russia in 1941, the Germans encountered the famous and technologically advanced Soviet T-34 tanks. This led Germany to develop the Panther or Panzer V in response. Its gun could penetrate the new Soviet tanks. Germany also developed the heavy Tiger I, released in 1942. The Tiger was soon joined by the Tiger II, also known as King Tiger, but too few were produced to impact the war in any discernible way.
One note of interest was the poor reliability of the German tanks such as the Panther and Tiger; constant mechanical failures meant that German tank divisions were rarely able to field a full complement of tanks and were often diminished below 50% combat readiness. The book The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan makes mention of the 7 million foreign workers who were forcibly brought into Germany to work in the factories and businesses — many of them in military assembly lines. Ryan specifically writes about these foreign workers in German tank manufacturing, who sabotaged every part they could and may have contributed to the rate of breakdown of German tanks in the field. This especially affected tanks built later in the war when forced labor had replaced German manpower in their manufacture.
In the Battle of Kursk, when the newly arrived Panther tanks moved into their assembly areas, 45 out of 200 experienced mechanical problems requiring repair. A good example was the Großdeutschland Division, which had a brigade of two battalions of new Panther Ausf. D tanks come under its operational control before the battle. After the launch of Operation Citadel, the new Panthers were plagued by technical problems, suffering from engine fires and mechanical breakdowns, many before reaching the battle, in which the division was heavily engaged. Also, it may have affected the Großdeutschland Division's non-role in the ensuing massive tank Battle of Prokhorovka, in which it was held in reserve, its Panther tanks not engaging as most were broken down by the time the battle started.
It also may have been an issue with the Tiger tanks. The Tiger's reliability problems were well known and documented; Tiger units frequently entered combat understrength due to breakdowns. It was rare for any Tiger unit to complete a road march without losing vehicles due to breakdown. The Jagdtiger, built on a lengthened Tiger II chassis, suffered from a variety of mechanical and technical problems and had frequent breakdowns; ultimately more Jagdtigers were lost to mechanical problems or lack of fuel than to enemy action.
German factories and industry were devastated by the end of World War II, but by the 1950s, the nation began to look at designing new tanks. The next tank design started as a collaborative project between Germany and France in the 1950s, but the partnership ended, and the final design was ordered by the Bundeswehr, production of the German Leopard 1 starting in 1965. In total, 6,485 Leopard I tanks were built, of which 4,744 were battle tanks and 1741 were utility and anti-aircraft variants, not including eighty prototypes and pre-series vehicles. The Leopard quickly became a standard of European forces, and eventually served as the main battle tank in Germany. It was superseded by the Leopard 2.
German design and development
German tank development can be traced back to 1911, when Austrian Oberleutenant Gunther Burstyn proposed a design for "motor vehicle gun" with a turret. He patented his design in 1912 in Germany but it never progressed beyond paper.World War I
After British tanks went into action at the Battle of Flers–Courcelette on 15 September 1916, the German Army immediately demanded their own landships. Following the appearance of the first British tanks on the Western Front, the War Ministry formed a committee of experts from leading engineering companies, answerable to the Allgemeines Kriegsdepartement, Abteilung 7, Verkehrswesen. The project to design and build the first German tank was placed under the direction of Joseph Vollmer, a leading German automobile designer and manufacturer. He was chosen to design the World War I German tanks A7V and the Großkampfwagen. The K-Wagen was a German super-heavy tank, two prototypes of which were almost completed by the end of World War I. The A7V tank which entered the war, was known as the Sturmpanzerwagen A7V, named after the committee that oversaw its development. It weighed around, capable of crossing ditches up to wide, have armaments including cannon at front and rear as well as several machine-guns, and reach a top speed of at least. The running gear was based on the Holt tractor, parts for which were copied from examples borrowed from the Austrian army. After initial plans were shared with the Army in December 1917, the design was extended to be a universal chassis which could be used as a base for both a tank and unarmoured Überlandwagen cargo carriers. Powered by two Daimler engines, the tank was first demonstrated in the German spring offensive of 1918. Internally, the Sturmpanzerwagen was cramped, smelly and noisy. It required a crew of 18 to man the machine to full potential. With the main gun at front, internal operators had access to two machine guns at the rear along with a further four along the sidestwo to a side. Each machine gun needed two personnel per gun - a firer and an ammunition re-supplier. The engine sat in the lower middle of the design with the main gear components resting under the rear. A crew of two operated the front main gun, one to aim and fire while the other loaded it. Two drivers sat in the upper center bulge area operating a steering wheel and lever controls. Stowage was allotted for individual crew weapons in the form of rifles. During final design, a rear-facing cannon was removed and the number of machine-guns was increased to six. Grab ropes were provided throughout as the design had plenty of headroom space for the average soldier, though travel made for an uneasy and overall bumpy ride.In theory, the idea of an armored box with a lot of weapons seemed sound. In practice, however, the large design was far from perfect. The vehicle was top-heavy, making it impractical to be used on uneven terrain. It was slow as well, often meaning that it could be outpaced by the very infantry it was to assist. The short tracks of the tractor system also made the vehicle relatively unsafe and uncontrollable in some cases. If the A7V has one saving grace, it was that the all-around armor protection for the crew was second to none - even when compared to the British designs - with over an inch in some areas. Twenty of these tanks were produced, and the first of these were ready in October 1917. The A7V was first used at St Quentin on 21 March 1918. Although some of its features, such as the sprung tracks and the thicker armour, made it better than British tanks at that time, the A7V was less successful as a battle vehicle. The main problems concerned its mechanical reliability and the difficulty it encountered crossing enemy trenches. Three of the five tanks committed broke down at St Quentin. At the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux a British tank disabled one A7V and drove off two more.
By the time of the arrival of the Sturmpanzerwagen, the Germans had already successfully developed their own brand of armor-piercing projectile as well. Near the end of the First World War, it was clear that the A7V was a failure, being too slow and clumsy in action and slow to build. Therefore, it was decided that a lighter tank was required which could spearhead assaults and which could be mass-produced and was called the Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien.
Thirteen companies bid for the contract and in the middle of 1918 construction of a design by Captain Müller was assigned to the Oberschlesien Eisenwerk of Gleiwitz, which had partially completed two prototypes by October 1918. It was a radical design for a fast-moving, lightly armored assault tank.
The Oberschlesien included a track which was placed under the tank and only wrapped around half of it. The design sacrificed armor for the sake of speed and only required a engine for the body, giving it a projected ground speed of.
The tank featured such advanced features as a main cannon mounted on top of the tank in a central revolving turret, separate fighting and engine compartments, a rear-mounted engine and a low track run. Neither the ordered test models nor the improved Oberschlesien II already planned were finished before the end of the war.
In the end, time running out on the new designs and the limitations of the A7V design, and being a part of the losing side of a war and fighting on the defensive, all led to a very average first try in the realm of tank design for the Germans.