The Panzer III: Hitler's Beast of Burden
()
About this ebook
Anthony Tucker-Jones
ANTHONY TUCKER-JONES spent nearly twenty years in the British Intelligence Community before establishing himself as a defence writer and military historian. He has written extensively on aspects of Second World War warfare, including Hitler’s Great Panzer Heist and Stalin’s Revenge: Operation Bagration.
Read more from Anthony Tucker Jones
The Art of War: Illustrated Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRadio Operator on the Eastern Front: An Illustrated Memoir, 1940–1949 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Falaise: The Flawed Victory–The Destruction of Panzergruppe West, August 1944 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Panzer IV: Hitler's Rock Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tiger I & Tiger II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Panther Tank: Hitlers T-34 Killer Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Iraq War: Operation Iraqi Freedom 2003–2011 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Operation Dragoon: The Liberation of Southern France, 1944 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rommel's Afrika Korps in Colour: Rare German Photographs from the Second World War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStalin's Revenge: Operation Bagration & the Annihilation of Army Group Centre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soviet Cold War Weaponry: Aircraft, Warships, Missiles and Artillery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIran–Iraq War: The Lion of Babylon, 1980–1988 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm 1990–1991 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daesh: Islamic State's Holy War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAllied Armour, 1939–1945: British and American Tanks at War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Afghan War: Operation Enduring Freedom 1001–2014 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dien Bien Phu: The First Indo-China War, 1946–1954 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stalin's Armour, 1941–1945: Soviet Tanks at War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle for Budapest 1944 - 1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soviet Cold War Weaponry: Tanks and Armoured Vehicles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle For Warsaw, 1939–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive, 1968 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsT-34: An Illustrated History of Stalin's Greatest Tank Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife and Death on the Eastern Front: Rare Colour Photographs From World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rise of Militant Islam: An Insider's View of the Failure to Curb Global Jihad Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSlaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941-1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle for the Mediterranean: Allied and Axis Campaigns from North Africa to the Italian Peninsula, 1940-45 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Panzer III
Titles in the series (100)
B-17 Memphis Belle Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Allied POWs in German Hands 1914–1918 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Germans on the Somme Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Germans at Arras Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsD-Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great War Fighter Aces, 1916–1918 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArmoured Warfare in the Battle of the Bulge, 1944–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArmoured Warfare in the Battle for Normandy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's Defeat on the Eastern Front Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adolf Hitler Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fallschirmjager: Elite German Paratroops in World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crushing of Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chiang Kai-shek Versus Mao Tse-tung: The Battle for China, 1946–1949 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rommel's Army in the Desert Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArmoured Warfare in the Korean War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5T-54/55: The Soviet Army's Cold War Main Battle Tank Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Armoured Warfare in the Italian Campaign, 1943–1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Armoured Warfare in the North African Campaign Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Armoured Warfare on the Eastern Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHitler's Mountain Troops, 1939–1945: The Gebirgsjager Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWaffen-SS on the Eastern Front, 1941–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArmoured Warfare and Hitler's Allies, 1941–1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Afrika-Korps Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Blitzkrieg in the West Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5War in the Balkans: The Battle for Greece and Crete, 1940–1941 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Joseph Stalin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Armoured Warfare in Northwest Europe, 1944–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlitzkrieg Russia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHitler's Headquarters, 1939–1945 Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Armoured Warfare and the Waffen-SS, 1944–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
Panzer III at War, 1939–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Panzer IV: Hitler's Rock Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tiger I & Tiger II Tanks: German Army and Waffen-SS Normandy Campaign 1944 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tiger I & Tiger II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's Tank Destroyers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Axis Tanks of the Second World War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPanzer IV, 1939–1945 Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Hitler's Light Panzers at War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTiger I and Tiger II Tanks: German Army and Waffen-SS, The Last Battles in the West, 1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPanzer III: Germany's Medium Tank Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5German Armour Lost on the Eastern Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPanzer I & II: Blueprint for Blitzkrieg, 1933–1941 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBritish Tanks: The Second World War Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Panzers I & II: Germany's Light Tanks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Panther V in Combat: Guderian's Problem Child Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHitler's Light Tanks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hetzer - Jagdpanzer 38 Tank Destroyer: German Army and Waffen-SS Western Front, 1944–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAllied Tanks of the Second World War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Axis Armoured Fighting Vehicles of the Second World War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sturmgeschütze: Armoured Assault Guns Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tiger I: German Army Heavy Tank: Eastern Front, Summer 1943 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPanther Tanks: Germany Army and Waffen SS, Normandy Campaign 1944 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPanzer IV Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPanzer I and II: The Birth of Hitler's Panzerwaffe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsT-34: The Red Army's Legendary Medium Tank Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Churchill Tanks: British Army, Northwest Europe, 1944–45 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hitler's Anti-Tank Weapons 1939–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPanzer III—German Army Light Tank: Operation Barbarossa 1941 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTank Wrecks of the Western Front, 1940–1945 Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5German Armour Lost on the Western Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Wars & Military For You
Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The History of the Peloponnesian War: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unit 731: Testimony Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Panzer III
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Panzer III - Anthony Tucker-Jones
Introduction
This title is designed to provide a brief visual history, as well as offer some analysis of the development, of the German Panzer III as part of the author’s well-established Images of War tank series. This type of panzer has long been overshadowed by its vastly more famous and glamourous stablemates the Panzer IV, Panther and Tiger. In particular much has been written about the latter two, which has been disproportionate to their contribution to the Panzerwaffe. Yet the Panzer III played a crucial but nonetheless very neglected role with Hitler’s panzer divisions and indeed his entire war effort.
Although it went into production in the late 1930s, the Panzer III lacked adequate firepower from the start and was supplemented by the slightly heavier Panzer IV. The latter, originally armed with a short 75mm gun, packed greater short-range punch than the initially more numerous Mk IIIs armed either with a 37mm or 50mm gun. The Mk III stayed in service in North Africa and Russia until the highly-versatile chassis was given over to assault-gun production in 1943. Nonetheless, it was encountered right up until the end of the war and fought at Kursk and in Normandy.
There is a popular perception that Hitler’s panzers emerged fully-formed in 1939 to sweep all before them in Western and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. This is far from the truth, as Hitler’s first two tanks, the Panzer I and Panzer II, were little more than lightly-armed training vehicles designed to get round the military restrictions of the Versailles treaty.
Attempts at providing a battle tank with the subsequent Panzer III went far from smoothly. It was initially armed with a 37mm gun, whereas British tanks had a 40mm, the heavier French tanks a 47mm or even a 75mm gun and Soviet tanks a 45mm gun. To make matters worse, the Soviets were in the process of developing the KV-1 and the T-34 which were both armed with a much more powerful 76.2mm anti-tank gun. Likewise, the early Panzer IVs with a short-barrelled 75mm gun were really designed as support weapons due to the lower muzzle velocity (good for firing high explosive but not anti-tank rounds).
The upshot was that Hitler’s panzers were in imminent danger of losing the tank arms race almost from the very beginning. Fortunately, as an interim solution the later versions of the Panzer III were upgunned with 50mm guns. This enable the Panzer III to remain Hitler’s beast of burden for another two years while his tank designers sought a winning combination of armour and firepower with the Panzer IV, Tiger and Panther.
It was during the mid-1930s Hitler’s fledgling Panzerwaffe envisaged a15-ton panzer, armed with a 37mm or 50mm armour-piercing gun, as the basic tank for the developing panzer divisions. It was proposed that this ‘light’ tank be supplemented by a medium 18-ton tank armed with a 75mm gun and this developed into the Panzer IV. From the start, General Heinz Guderian wanted a 50mm gun installed in the Panzer III, but in an effort to get production underway without interdepartmental disagreement the smaller 37mm gun, which was the standard infantry anti-tank gun, was accepted. It would not be until after the French campaign that the 50mm gun began to be fitted to the Panzer III.
Guderian wrote afterwards:
We had differences of opinion on the subject of gun calibre with the Chief of the Ordnance Office and with the Inspector of Artillery. Both of these gentlemen were of the opinion that a 37mm gun would suffice for the light tanks, while I was anxious that they be equipped with a 50mm weapon since this would give them the advantage over the heavier armour plate which we expected soon to be incorporated in the construction of foreign tanks. Since, however, the infantry was already equipped with 37mm anti-tank guns, and for reasons of productive simplicity it was not considered desirable to produce more than one type of light anti-tank gun and shell. General Lutz and I had to give in.
During the 1920s Guderian had joined the staff of the Inspector of Motorized Troops, working with Major Lutz. Once Hitler was in power the Führer set up an Armoured Troops Command under now General Lutz with Guderian as his chief of staff. Both were avid enthusiasts of the panzer concept and the need for hard-hitting armoured divisions. They enjoyed Hitler’s full support. Guderian was then given command of the newly-established 2nd Panzer Division in 1935 but he continued to work closely with Lutz over the development of the Panzerwaffe. Guderian did not get the chance to impress upon Hitler the need for the 50mm gun again until after the Polish campaign.
The Panzer III and IV were given entirely different guns which performed very different tasks. A small-bore weapon with a high muzzle velocity has a long range, accuracy and penetrating power. In addition, the greater speed of its projectile makes it easier to hit moving targets. Such penetrating power is only useful against other tanks and concrete emplacements. A larger-bore gun is less effective except at short range. The stubby 75mm KwK37 L/24 gun fitted to the early Panzer IV had a low velocity, which made it ideal for firing high-explosive shells capable of destroying soft targets, but its short range made it unsuited for tank-versus-tank combat.
The small bore of the 37mm KwK L/45.6 fitted to the Panzer III had all the characteristics of a high-velocity gun, but was less effective against infantry and towed anti-tank guns. This was why Guderian really wanted the bigger, high-velocity 50mm gun as it would be able to fire a HE shell big enough to the same job as the L/24. Such guns were effectively dual-purpose weapons and they gave a tank commander an advantage over his opponents.
The earlier Panzer I and II light tanks, armed with nothing heavier than machine guns or a 20mm gun respectively, were considered no more than stop-gaps. The prototypes for the new 15-ton tank were codenamed Zugführerwagen (platoon commanders vehicle – abbreviated as ZW) and tested in 1936–7. The Panzer III became a medium tank as the Panzer I and II weighed about 5 tons and 9 tons respectively.
Whilst the Panzer IV proved to be Hitler’s rock throughout the Second World War, during the opening stages of the conflict the more numerous Panzer III acted as his beast of burden. It was in the service of Rommel’s tough Afrika