Stronk French History

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Thanks to Vollketten for this one :)

Hello everyone,

need a good laugh? Well, here’s some stronk French armor history. In the TnT magazine, January/February 2009, the French actually proved that the Panther is superior to IS-3! :)

Let’s start with something mild. The armor.

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Well, for starters, that’s a Panther with 88mm L/71 and Schmalturm. Because, you know, that totally existed. The numbers are off too – but whatever. The magazine is calling that Panther Ausf.F. Newsflash: Panther Ausf.F did NOT have the 88mm L/71, that was a separate project! But no worries, it gets better – mobility:

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Again, German fantasy (900hp HL234 engine, that wasn’t even a part of the Panther Ausf.F program!) versus Soviet reality (which is not even right, IS-3 was powered by a 520hp engine). Based on fantasy numbers, the French prove that the Panther had superior mobility to the IS-3, by a huge margin. But can it get even better? Of course it can :) Firepower:

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As you can see, the firepower of the gun that was never mounted on a Panther clearly is superior to the one of IS-3, because, you know, firepower is measured in penetration :) Plus the penetration numbers are WAY off reality (145mm at 100 meters? For D-25?).

The conclusion of the magazine is – and I quote: “Panzerkampfwagen V Ausf.F was superior to IS-3 Model 1945″

How the hell did the Germans lose the war with such awesome machines? :) But can it get EVEN BETTER? Of course it can, check this out. The French description of the E-series:

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Either E-5 or E-10 was a fake (can’t remember right now). E-90 – pure fake. Bonus points for referring to the Krokodil, Alligator and Tiger III. Hahaha :) Gotta love google historians.

73 thoughts on “Stronk French History”

  1. Omfg tiger III? Wtf is that suppose to be? I know the E75 suppose to be a tiger II like tenku with similar armor, but better front armor and a possible 10.5cm but I dont know about the tiger II though.

  5. Comparing a cold war tank to a WWII tank is moronic to begin with.German tanks were superior to their contemporaries for the most part..aka early into the war when they had the resources (even later they still had good tanks but in small numbers and development of new tanks was hindered).

    The only time the russians had superior tanks was when the t-34 was introduced and the germans had measly panzer 4s.KV tanks were not impressive and were easy to deal as they were lumbering beasts and could be easily outmaneuvered.

      • Like i said i’m talking about early war when all things were equal.That excludes the t54 which iirc never saw service during the war, earliest prototypes were like 45-46.Idk about the IS2, the only IS i remember serving in the war was the IS which was okay and was there to deal with the tigers.

        • The IS-2 is IS with 122mm gun.
          Those fought in the war.

          It was not there to deal with Tigers. It was there to fight the things that MATTERED. Bunkers, Fortresses, Infantry.

          • What i am saying is the only russian tank that could take the tiger head on was the IS…and that is what it was made for primarily.If you disagree, that’s your prerogative.

            • The Soviet Union did not really NEED an anti-tank tank.
              They made one that COULD kill Tigers, but that was NOT its objective.
              It was a breakthrough vehicle.
              Infantry, AT guns, bunkers and fortresses were more dangerous.

            • Somewhere on the Internet, there’s a document showing the planned Russian responses to the Tiger. It was basically the T-34/85 and better anti-tank guns and tank destroyers in general. The Russians didn’t care about building a tank to match the Tigers on an individual basis, they wanted large numbers of something that could get through the Tiger’s armour at a reasonable range so that their greater numbers meant they could KILL the Tigers.

              (This is one of the things I was referring to by saying that whose were better depends on your priorities. The German stuff was probably better one-on-one, but relatively speaking their tanks were complex and slow to manufacture compared to their Russian counterparts.)

          • There also weren’t that many of the IS-1s with the 85mm – they made that gun upgrade pretty quickly.

        • there was 2 type of IS-2 in ww2, mod 43 and mod 44.

          the mod 43 was a IS-1 rearmed with a 122mm gun
          the mod 44 frontal hull was made into a 120mm plate laidback at 60 degree

          and no tank ever named with the name IS ( without number )

    • Well, it’s comparing a tank that didn’t come out in time to play a significant role in the war, to a tank which could have come out at the time of the IS3 if the German war industry wasn’t completely FUBAR by then. Still, the problem is that the statistics they’re using MIGHT have been used in a later development of the Panther, but certainly wasn’t the Ausf F.

      Comparing late-war German and Russian tanks generally boils down to what your priorities are in tanks. Still, most of the period where Germany was doing well was actually when they had fairly poor tanks compared to their opponents – the T-34 being the well-known example before the “big cats” showed up, and the French arguably had better tanks before they collapsed.

      • To deal with the Matilda or AMX 40 the Germans had to modify their entire strategy.

        Had to change it to lure them into 8.8s.

    • The early german tanks were utter crap. While the French had B1-bis, S-35 and what H or R39, the Germans had shitty PzI, II and IIIs.

      It’s only by 42 that ze Germans gained the upper hand, purely on a technical side. Cause their strategical doctrine was still shit.

      • The ONLY thing the French tanks had was superior armor. Most of their tanks had 1 man turrets. Imagine trying to tell the driver where to go. Load the gun, aim the gun, look for new targets/threats.

        Yeah, not a good idea. While the P2/3 tanks did not have sufficient guns they had great chassis and layout. This made them efficient.

        • The more up to date French tanks like the Somua generally were about as mobile as their German equivalents at the time, had similar firepower, and better armour. Single-man turrets were a weakness, of course, but most tanks at the time had some weakness to them.

          That said, to a degree the French ironically mirrored the latewar Germans – they arguably had the best tanks in the world at the time (the T-34 wasn’t in service then, and those that were had two-man turrets – not as bad as one-man, but still a weakness) but MOST of what the French had were the obsolete hulls. That said, the Germans at least made token efforts to turn their obsolete hulls into something that was still somewhat useful.

    • Ah, and yet another Google Historian rises to take the bait.

      Tell me, which is better?

      1 “Superior” Tank or 10 “Good” Tanks?

      • I’d take ten mediocre tanks over one ‘superior’ tank, as long as the former’s guns were good enough to have a reasonable chance of penetrating the latter.

        That said, while the T-34 was faster and cheaper to build than the Panther, the numerical disparity had as much to do with Russia (and the US) simply having more capacity to build. There’s probably no tank design that could have been introduced by the Germans in 1943 or later that could have substantially affected the war – by the time you’re facing 10 to 1 odds against an opponent that’s even vaguely strategically and tactically competent, technical advantages can only go so far. While I don’t have the exact figures at hand, if you assumed the same industrial capacity was going into each, you could probably only build 2 or 3 T-34/85s per Panther, rather than 10.

        When you remove the disparity in technical capacity, whether it’s better to have one “superior” tank or a few “good” ones becomes a question of whether your bottleneck is in manpower or war materials. If you’ve got lots of manpower, then going for quantity over quality with your equipment makes sense in order to equip all your soldiers. If manpower is your bottleneck, then superior equipment becomes a force multiplier – and Germany was in a situation of being outnumbered in personnel for pretty much the entire war except the period where Britain was their only credible opponent.

    • Actually the Char B1 was quite a devastating French tank that probably could have saved france if they had more support.

      And one of the best tanks the Germans had was the foreign Pz 38 (t) early in the war.

    • hate to burst your bubble but, the t34 design is better than the pz1-4 by…a lot…so much that the germans decided that their next heavy tank should have the same slope as the t34.early shortcomings were only caused by not having a radio. the german square box shape was not advanced, iirc the m4s sloped armor is about the same effective armor as the tiger,why? because its sloped.

      • Considering that nenshou specifically acknowledged that the T-34 was superior to the PzIV, I don’t think there’s much bubble-bursting there.

  6. E-5 and E-10 are both real.
    E-5 is mostly unknown because it was an utilitarian project rather than something impressive, mostly meant to be a response to the Bren carrier and used at best as ambush APC with the crew using a few panzershrecks.

    • Was looking for this about E-5! I’ve seen some 3D-render of it being an APC, don’t remember where though… And E-10 is that E-25-like TD that can lower its chassis.

  8. This just reminds me of when I went to see Fury, there was some group of guys talking about tanks in lobby. I overheard some of their conversation and man were they wrong about everything. Some people really read and believe stuff like this article.

    • Like an old granpa once said to his son’s son: “Look that airplane has props, it IS very old” FUCK YOU GRANPA: that Bombardier Dash8Q-400 was built in 2008, protoype flew first in 1996. Damn uninformed people should shut their mouths before they tell shit.

  9. If only the germans had used VK B ARMAH instead of going one step higher and using the maus, they might’ve saw at least a few months of action. Oh well.

  10. Obviously being able to read and translate Russian doesn’t make you fluent in French.

    Hint 1 last picture : Toutes les désignations sont précisées à titre indicatif.
    Hint 2 : prospective

  13. Please don’t say “the French” when talking about one bunch of poorly informed magazine writers. Obviously there are idiots everywhere but not all French are idiots.

    Disapointed with the tone of this article.

    • Don’t worry. Everybody (or most of the people) seems to love writing shit on us so we are used to that.

    • Being french doesn’t make you a shitty writer, being a shitty writer doesn’t make you frenhc :D

  15. Be careful Silenstalker, they apparently don’t speak about the Panther from 44/45 but from the tanks that could have fought each other in 46/47.
    That explains the completely unhistorical setting of the Panther (even if they call it ausf F., it’s probably more representing the Panther II).

    After i agree on the fantasy values for the guns.

      • They compare the main representatives of both armies if they were still fighting each other at this time (even if the Panther was a medium tank and the IS-3 a heavy).
        The IS-4 had finally an extremely limited production, and the IS-7 never entered in service. For the German tanks, i agree it’s pure speculation, but it’s probable that the Panther ausf F. and the Panther II would have been the main tanks of an uchronic 46/47′ German army.

        • In that scenario, they probably would have been better to compare to the T-44, maybe even the T-54.

  17. “The French”? Certainly you mean, one French magazine.

    If anybody wrote “the Poles” instead, you’d be calling for people to report the author in WoT to get his account banned.

  18. All my El. Oh. El.
    Do people even try anymore? Or do they just take everything published on “Insert internet here” at face value? I know the American school system sucks, but I learned to cite my sources and check several sources to come to a conclusion. Not just type it into Google and take the first thing that matches my interests and opinions.

  20. All simle
    Caraktère Publishing staff made fap-fap-fap on the Hugo Boss uniform. Don’t know, maybe it’s result of 1940-44 occupation, hahaha.
    For example, in Batailles & Blindes lots of articles dedicated to SS commanders, SS panzer divisions etc.
    I also like articles “whale vs. elephant” like article from post. As example, they made article “T-26 vs Pz.III”, lol.

    • It would help if WG didn’t contribute to the “uber german tanks” trend by overinflating stats from their historical base.
      I think we could at least agree on that Yuri :)

  21. Ndiver got it :-) uchronic dual
    The article on E project it’s already an projection of panzerwaffe 46/47
    sure love your mean of firepower FTR
    aiming and piercing cap … IRL

    Russian have said ” touch a tank with 152 at 400m it’s luck at 800m a miracle ”

    thank your shitty fragmented source
    that why i don’t scan too much

    unleash patriotic SHITSTORM

  22. Hey SS,

    Don’t say “The French”… every nation has assholes thinking they can wrote books about any subject even if they know nothing about it.

  23. To all the bungholes who think the early german panzers were crap – you are ignorant. I remember a soviet tanker veteran (but not the name) talking about tanks from that period. He said a german panzer (III and IV) could traverse 200km like it was nothing. A T-34 on the other hand would definitely lose some parts on it’s way. The early panzers were by far the most reliable tanks ever built in WW2, and although they were inferior in armor and firepower, they were unbelievably successful against the stronger allied tanks, thanks to the highly skilled german crews and their commanders.

    Now to the point – regarding the 122mm gun of IS tanks. The 145mm pen is a lot closer to reality than what WG wants you to think. The real penetration remains a mystery but it’s commonly accepted it was somewhere around 155-160mm at point blank, unless the shell was of low quality and the pen would go down – this happened an unacceptable many of times.

    Panther F – as shown here with the Schmalturm – had the standard 7.5cm L70 gun. The penetration with standard AP rounds was 138mm at 30 degrees = 159mm at 100m – equal or possibly slightly superior to the 122mm gun on IS-3. Not many of you know this ofc, you are brain-washed by WG.
    Note : the Panthers also had PzGr 40/42 special ammo with a pen of 194 at 30degrees = 222mm at point blank.

    Mobility-wise, all Panther models were faster than IS-3, but not as much as the french guys claim.

    The only area where IS-3 was superior to Panther was the armor, and the high caliber HE shells the IS-3 wielded.

    Russians claimed their IS tanks armed with 122mm guns were capable of knocking out Panther at 2500m. After testing against a Panther angled at 30 degrees – standard angling of german tanks – it was proved that 122mm gun was incapable of penetrating the Panther’s glacis even at point blank, the lower glacis was penetrable from max 100m and the mantlet from 500m.

    IS-3 still had the advantage over Panther F due to the significantly better armor…. as long as this didn’t happen – “Wartime production resulted in many mechanical problems and a hull weldline that had a tendency to crack open.”.

  24. I don’t have that particular edition (my collection begins right after that…).
    However I do have a special edition about the Panther and its variants.
    In it, the names and numbers you reference are given for a successor of the Panther (Panzer V Ausf. F). They give 2 different models, one with a 7.5 cm KwK and a Maybach HL230, the other with the 8.8 L71 and a Maybach HL234.
    So, I think they were indeed comparing a prospective Panzer with an historical IS-3.
    From what they say in the accompanying article, they do know it never actually existed, but that it was a well advanced project that would have wrought havoc among the Russian forces, had there been time (and means) to implement the production of that tank.

    This magazine is released by an editor specialized in military history. From what I have seen and read from their magazines, they are generally quite serious. They do sometimes like to compare SF tanks with historical, but what geek wouldn’t do it?

    • The main thing about “unhistorical Panther F” that I can see is that the Panther F was planned to use a 75L70. The Germans considered an armament substitution to be worth calling it a new Ausf, so there would probably never have been an 88L71 Ausf F.

      Experiments were being conducted for an 88L71 version, however. It just would not have been called the Ausf F, but it would be some later Ausf.

  25. Also.
    Guys, just rember – IS-3 was just a IS-2 modernisation, 50% of initial IS-2 modernisation program.
    From soviet central tank department view IS-3 was obsolete, but faster for mass production, than Object 701 (IS-4). Only year of production from spring 1945 to july 1946. But Object 701 was also obsolete in mid 1945 from soviet central tank department view, haha. Already in july 1945 was done of Object 257 heavy tank project, it’s first IS-7 concept.

    • Been the way pretty much since 1955. Adenauer did a LOT to demolish the idea of an innate Franco-German hostility as part of the natural order of things. Even before West Germany was allowed to rebuild its own armed forced, the French were getting German advisors in restarting the French tank industry, leading to official collaboration. (That collaboration later split and produced the AMX-30 and Leopard separately, but that’s the French for you. Sooner or later they have a tendency to decide that it’s only good enough for the French military if it was made in France.)

  29. french idiot? stupid?
    You the Russian, Not Even know build warship,you ask France has to build them for you

    who is stupid?

  30. In late 1942, German designers started the development of more powerful and slightly larger version of Panther mounted on a newly designed chassis. In January of 1943, Adolf Hitler agreed on the development of Panther with increased armor protection especially for the needs of the Eastern Front. This project was designated Panther (2) II and its design was planned along with the development of Tiger II. In February of 1943, it was decided that Panther II, in its design would resemble Tiger II and would have many common components such as: tracks, transmission, suspension and roadwheels. Both designs had common components in an attempt to standardize the production. Overall dimensions were very similar to those of Panther Ausf G. Hull’s design was very similar to that of the late model Panther Ausf G but with many modernizations such as the arrangement of observation equipment and new engine deck. Its armor protection was significantly increased if compared to any other Panther variant produced. Side armor protection was 60mm thick while frontal armor protection was 100mm thick. It was planned to arm Panther II with the latest 75mm KwK 42 L/100 or even 88mm KwK 43 L/71 (without muzzle break) gun mounted in newly designed narrow turret – Schmalturm (designed by Rheinmetall in 1944 and to be produced by Daimler-Benz).

    Panther II’s Schmalturm (narrow) turret was slightly different than that of Panther Ausf F. Turret’s armor protection was significantly increased if compared to any other Panther turret. Front was 120-125mm, gun mantlet was 150mm, while sides and rear were 60mm and top was 30mm thick. Schmalturm had special mountings for infrared device and telescopic range finder. All of those modifications increased Panther II’s weight to 47 tons. Panther II was to be powered by new Maybach HL234 engine with total power of 900hp operated by 8-speed hydraulic transmission. Instead Maybach HL 230 P 30 engine was mounted and Maybach HL234was later on due to be completed in August of 1945, for future Panther series. It was believed that Panther II’s performance would be similar to that of Panther Ausf G, while if ever produced Panther II would most likely suffer from the same problems as Tiger II. Simply because of its great weight and high fuel consumption which made it extremely slow. It is also unknown what other modifications would be made if Panther II would be combat tested.

    ” And the E-75 was to be christened the Tiger III “

    • Sorry E-90 was destined to be Tiger III but the E-75 was basically the replacement for the Tiger ! while the E-90 was to be the replacement of the Tiger II. Hit post before post reading what I wrote duh lol!!!!