Panther Ausf A - Italy 1943 | Panther Ausf A Russia, NO ZIMMERIT

Ausf D and early Ausf A hulls are identical. The only externally visible changes between models occurred in the redesigned turret. The external differences between a Ausf D and a Ausf A have been discussed in several threads on Missing Lynx.

 To quote Roy Chow;

"Most older books (before Jentz' Panther: Quest for Combat Supremacy) mistakenly cite the switchover from D to A as the MG port to kugelblende MG mount. As others have said, this is wrong.

Often these older books will caption a photo of an early A (cast cupola, letterbox MG port) as a late D -- these would be wrong.

Books off the top of my head that share this mistake are:

Anderson's "Panther" by Concord

Culver & Feist's "Panther In Detail"

Squadron Signal "Panther in Action"

Sturm & Drang Panther

Hughes and Mann's "Panther tank" a coffee table book"

 I would add Spielberger's ; Panther and it's variants, to Roy's list.

Quoting Cran Smith;

"The puzzler is at Panzer Tracts 5-74, as you know, Robert. Jentz makes a general statement about drum cupolas going onto ausf A turrets. However, the single example of this practice that he adduces is a befehlspanzer, judging from the antenna mounts and the plugged coax port. We know about befehlspanthers with zimmerit and drum cupolas. Should we suspect others of being ausf As with new-style turrets (except for the cupolas?) More to the point, we have one example so far of new turret/drum cupola overlap, and it's not a line Panther. It seems pretty safe to argue that for a rule of thumb, drum equals ausf D and cast equals ausf A, until we have more counterexamples."

Quoting Terry Ashley of PMMS:

"The presents [sic] of this new cupola identifies it is an Ausf.A and not a late Ausf.D as some older references would indicate."

There is no mention of cast cupolas being used on the Panther Ausf D in Jentz' Germany's Panther Tank. To quote Jentz from page 57 of GPT; "Among the changes introduced with the first Ausf. A were: The commander's cupola consisting of a cast armor body..."

Again Jentz, Panzer Tracts 5-1; "These photos of Ausf.D produced in August/September 1943 are ample evidence that none were completed with cast commander's cupolas."

 In addition, a somewhat higher resolution copy of the above photo in question can be found on page 115 of;  Panzer Truppen Vol 2. The square-cut, turret side to turret front welding seam can be more clearly seen, a definitive Ausf A characteristic.

Early A, I believe. The commanders cupola gives it away.

But it has a D hull, letter box machine gun port etc. Therefore an early A model., or is it a late D?

Well, I found the image on a forum here :)

I believe early type A's also had the same periscope on the mantlet, we can see it here:

And again here:

The monocular (T.Z.F.12a) gun sight did not replace the binocular (T.Z.F.12) until late Nov. / early Dec, well into Ausf A production. (See Jenzt, Germany's Panther Tank, Quest for Combat Supremacy, page 64, note 4.3.7.) The Ausf A pictured on page 66 has the binocular sight. 

 Liam, it appears you have solved the mystery of where these unzimmed Ausf A ended up. Where did you find this image? I looked all over but didn't find any of this info, so obviously I'm missing something here.

I think this is a late D, not an early A. If I remember my research correctly, the cast cupola was fitted to the last of the D production. I believe the binocular gunners periscope in the mantlet is the giveaway. I'm doing this from memory so correct me if I'm wrong guys

I've also just found this...

This is said to be one of the few existing photographs of a panther Ausf.A without zimmerit. It is a model, the 701, the panzer regiment 23 belonging to the Heavy Panzerregiment Bake on the Russian front in early 1944. According to this source  A few are without zimmerit, practically only those produced in August 1943 and that the production of that month has been assigned to all 23 panzerregiment. 

Personally I believe this is another tank from the link jgeratic posted.

Well there we go then, thanks a million! Wish I was as good at researching as you.. I need to build up a libary ;)

Liam

Yep! I'll put my money on the Bundesarchiv, any day, every day. Northern Russia it is.

Alright, I'm really out of here now.

Wait, so they were in Russia!?

Read the Bundesarchiv carefully ....Russland Nord...that's northern Russia!

Well, thats closure enough for me. I'll model my Panther Ausf A based on the idea that there were a couple more like the 438 and 435 seen in the pictures and stick it onto a diorama in the Ardennes. I still can't make out the camo pattern on them though. Cheers for the help Ixion!

Liam

Looky what I found;

www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/.../_1359693881=detail&search[focus]=21

Please feel free to retire one's Squadron's "In Action" series to the nearest National Park outhouse....

Squadron in action series have lots of nice photos, really poor captions.

Cheers Ixion! I found another angle of the 438 and 435 aswell ;) 

Here you go, knock yourself out;

http://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/

Put on the hip waders, its going to get deep!

OK, I'm out for the night, I need a beer....have fun!

Well thats good news, from Italy to the Ardennes.. boy was this fun haha.

Liam

Don't you just love it when a simple question grows into something ridiculous?

Squadron's Panther in Action, page 14 caption says 438 is in the Ardennes. It also states it is a Ausf D....well, in Mr Jentz I trust, all others take a back seat. 438 most certainly is not a Ausf D, the diagram on page 57 of Panther Tank, Quest for Combat Supremacy clearly shows the difference in the interlocking turret joints of a Ausf A vs a Ausf D, which can be seen in the photo, so Squadron is wrong about that. I looked in my copy of the 544 page Battle of the Bulge, Then and Now to see if I could confirm 438's location, but could not find the photo. The fact that it is a Bundesarchiv photo helps a lot, as we should be able to track down and confirm it's location, assuming I can remember which website will do this type of search.

Alas I am confused, this is some tough work finding these non zim tanks. So perhaps there may have been no zim Ausf A's in Italy and in Russi... what of the 438 in the Ardennes? Could this possibly be in Russia?

Liam

Before this thread runs completely off the edge, I would just like to state that I have no evidence there were any non-zimmed Ausf A in Italy at all. The stupid drawing in Osprey's Anzio 1944 started this goose-chase by depicting a naked Ausf A in a two page color spread and being familiar with the actual photo, I ran with it. Upon finding the photo in question and realising the Osprey drawing is bogus, I've got no game. The time period is close enough, the shipment of early model Ausf A's are in the right period, but without records of Fgst. Nr. and where they were shipped, one can only hope to find a photo, otherwise this is like trying to prove/disprove God.

Anyways, in the link Jack posted  is the photo in question from page 62 of Jentz's Panther Tank. Great news! Now we know what unit it is from! The caption under it in Jentz's book states it was built on or about Oct 1st from the D-Benz factory. Production figures on page 60 state that 50 Ausf A were built  at DB prior to this vehicle, since it doesn't have Zim, I highly doubt the previous 50 did either, then there are the other 3 factories outputs as well. So I'm going to say there were at least 50 Ausf A without Zim. The introduction of Zimmerit was scheduled for Sept 7th, but all factories did not start at the same time. Only 3 Ausf A total were completed before Sept of 1943 at all 4 factories, production did not start in earnest until Sept..

 Even though the shipment of 76 Panthers to 1/PzRg 4 wasn't until Feb of 44, it still had some Ausf D included, be they rebuilds (probably, since there were so many problems with them ) or new, I don't know, but the Ausf A were  early production models, as seen by the initial horizontal jack placement in photos, and other features as well. Besides, Squadron misidentifies this as a Ausf D, which it is not, because we know the Fgst.Nr. is 151951, which can actually be seen in the photo in Jentz's book.

Time to check out Panzerregiment Bäke.... Schweres Panzer-Regiment Bäke was formed on 23 Jan 1944, so just about the same time as the actions in Italy.My guess is if a non-zim Ausf A can show up in Russia at this late date, maybe Italy too? I would like to know how this Ausf A was identified as belonging to Schweres Panzer-Regiment Bäke?  I'm not saying it doesn't belong to Bake, I'd just like to know, as it might shed some light as to the rest of the non-zims...however many there actually are. Since Schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503 is part of this unit and I have the Combat History of sPzAbt 503 I'll see if there are any photos or info there...Searching for II/ Panzer regiment 23 isn't yielding much.

Not necessarily a can of worms, but perhaps a needle in the haystack?  According to a quoted source from  Jentz's "Germany's Panther Tank", production of the Ausf A started in Aug. of 1943 with only 3 being completed that month.  Difficult to guesstimate just how many early A's left the factories sans zimmerit as the official application dates vary so widely.  It does knock out I./Pz. Rgt. 4 as a possibility as they were sent to Italy in February 1944 to counter the Anzio landings.

I may have another contender,  though more recent research may come along to debunk it.  This one takes it's setting in southern Russia with Schweres Panzerregiment Bäke.  A photo appears on page 9 of Squadron's Panther in Action.  More info and a dedicated build here:

members.verizon.net/.../panther.htm

regards,

Jack

According to the site I lifted it from, "ausf A sicuramente non zimmerati".  I have not seen this as a actual photo. There are tons of GD photos to wade through......maybe later.

Yeah, I'll build one with zim and one without at some point. I try and tackle making my own zim at a later point, haha.

Ah, how I long for those days, not so long ago, early 70's,  when I could build the old Tamiya Panther ausf A,  no references anywhere, no zimmerit (what's zimmerit?) paint it like the box art, and look at it in blissful ignorance.  But I still wouldn't want to go back to that point in time.

Perhaps you might want to consider doing your own zimm?  I've done it many  times, isn't really all  that hard. Well, it can be a pain...  Or you can consider that it was one without zimmerit that never had it's picture taken.  There had to be one of those, right?  As some others here have observed, zimmerit  can be quite difficult to observe in grainy photos.  I've had that problem as well.

good luck

Doug

BTW, I built a Dragon A based on that pic in the Jentz book, no zimm,  then one with Cavalier zimm.

Well that's good news :) Now I just need to brush up on my camo painting skills, haha.

438 in the Ardennes is definately NOT a Ausf D. You can plainly see the square-cut interlock between the turret side and turret front, Ausf D had a dove-tailed interlock welding seam.

Thanks for comformation, like I said not a keen eye for those details on old crappy photos. I still wonder if that Panther was actually an Ausf A in the Ardennes.

All 3 of those photos show zimmerit.

Yeah, I would also want a photo haha. But the one in the Ardennes region is also speculated to be a D in Russia... oh my oh my

Here are some pictures I found of Ausf A's which are questionable, but appear with out zim. I don't have a keen eye for spotting it in these grainy photos though.

one

Two

three