Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert
Despite that, it had acceptable serviceability rates up until Germany was unable to keep tanks in field of any type, once the major problems with the engine and transmission had been mitigated. Yes, it had defects, but it had strengths as well, like having very good cross-country mobility, and getting bogged down puts a tank out of service too, and M4s bogged down quite easily because their tracks were thinner than they really should've been.
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Oh don't get me wrong it's a great tank (after they iron out the initial technical issues but frankly it's hardly alone in that). and as you say after that it's biggest problems were due to being part of wider systemic issues within the German armed forces full stop.
But my point was really specific issues can be due to unusual things, and they can combine badly with those larger issues. Knowing the issues with logistics training and fuel, was a 44 Ton medium tank that's a bit finicky to drive and with a fail state result of that requires needing a major repair. especially when numbers are already an issue:
The overstressed transmission system resulted in the third gear being stripped prematurely in its service life.[51] This problem was compounded by alloy shortages which made gears more brittle and prone to failure.[51] This led to the complicated task of accessing the transmission which was fully enclosed by the Panther's frontal armor.[51] In order to access the final drive the entire driver's compartment and transmission had to be disassembled[51] and lifted out. This is sharply contrasted with accessing the Sherman transmission which only required the armor cover to be unbolted in the front.[51]
EDIT: why I actually posted that snippet So you have resource problem (choice of transmission and material issues), training issues (drivers less able to accommodate for the weakness and increased failure) design issues (having to to do all that to access the fault when it occurs), logistics/support issues (trying to do all that when it's needed), all of which compound.