Panzer III meidium tank

Here is another tank I'd like to blog about.


In 1934,when the German army desperately wanted a new main battle tank,and eventually a fairly large tank(for the time)with a 37mm gun was selected.However even before it entered production it was outclassed by the Panzer IV:a newer and better tank armed with a 75mm gun and with better armour.Despite this it was a good tank and showed so in the invasion of Poland in 1939,where it was equal to or even better than the best tanks the Polish army had.However,as with the Panzer IV,the Panzer III met it's matches in France and Russia in 1940-41.By this time the obsolete 37mm gun was replaced with a short barrelled 50mm gun.



At the end of 1941 it was modified yet again,it's short barrelled 50mm gun was replaced with a long barrelled one.It's final gun modification came in the very last variant(the Ausf. n)in which the 50mm was replaced with a short barrelled 75mm gun.On top of these it got several armour upgrades during it's courier.By the end of 1944 the Panzer III was far outclassed by American and Russian tanks and by this time Germany had very,very few left but the continued to serve with some of Germany's allies until the end of the war.


Note:please see previous blog(Panzer IV)to see what "Ausf." means.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_III



That's all for now!



Tigertank