Panzerkampfwagen V Panther Ausf. G (Sd.Kfz. 171)

Type: Medium Tank
Nation: Germany
Period: World War 2
Location: Restaurant “Le Tank”, Celles, Belgium

Gaining weight

Although the Germans classified the Panther as a medium tank, its 45-ton weight was more comparable to contemporary Allied heavy tanks like the Soviet KV-1 or the American M26 Pershing. Originally the Panther had been designed to weigh 30 metric tons like the T-34 and the M4 Sherman, but as requirements changed, the combat weight went up accordingly. At one point Hitler personally demanded the frontal armour thickness to be increased from 60 to 80 mm – a decision which would lead to severe reliability problems as the drivetrain had been designed for a lighter vehicle. And a decision for which there had been no formal requirement other than Hitler‘s wishes.

The first Main Battle Tank?

In hindsight some historians have argued that the Panther can be viewed as the archetype of the modern main battle tank – the one-tank-fits-all concept that combines the mobility of a medium tank with the firepower of a heavy. Of course in doctrine, the MBT did not come into existence until the 1950s and 1960s, but these historians certainly have a point: Although weighing twelve tons less than the Tiger I, the Panther‘s effective frontal armour thickness was actually greater because it was sloped. And the penetration power of the Panther‘s 7.5 cm gun was at least as good as the Tiger‘s infamous “eighty-eight”, since the 7.5 had a much longer barrel.

Local legends

This particular vehicle was built at Maschinenfabrik Niedersachsen Hannover (MNH) in November 1944. In the morning hours of 24 December 1944 it was heading towards Dinant at the River Meuse as part of Kampfgruppe von Cochenhausen (2. Panzerdivision), when it ran over a mine at a road junction in Celles. The crew was forced to bail out – less than ten kilometres away from their objective. According to local café owner Madame Marthe Monrique, the Germans asked her if the road to Dinant was safe. She later claimed to have lied about the road being heavily mined and thereby effectively halted the whole column all by herself. A commemorative sign on the wall below the Panther still announces that this was the place where the “Rundstedt Offensive” was stopped.

Turkey shoot on Christmas day

In reality, the accompanying Kampfgruppe von Böhm had already advanced a few kilometres further to Foy Notre-Dame. The Germans had been advancing so fast that they had outrun their own fuel supply. They couldn’t have kept on going even if they wanted to. Instead, they had no choice but to wait for supplies or relief, but as all other German divisions in the area had not been able to keep up due to stiff Allied resistance, this was not going to happen. When troops of the British 3rd Royal Tank Regiment and the US 2nd Armored Division discovered the immobilised column on 25 December, they used their tanks, ground artillery and fighter-bombers to shoot all of the approximately 100 German armoured vehicles plus many more guns and trucks to pieces – including this Panther. In 1948, after every part that could be easily taken off for scrap had been removed, Madame Monrique (who had become known as “the woman who stopped the tanks”), acquired the wreck and placed it as a monument and tourist attraction right next to her café, which today is called “Le Tank”.

You shall not pass

Amidst the chaos of the Battle of the Bulge, three German soldiers had actually made it to the Meuse after all. They had been riding in a US Jeep wearing American helmets and coats when they were killed at an Allied checkpoint near the iconic Bayard rock in Dinant around midnight on 23 December. Although Otto Skorzeny would boast that they had been commandos of his infamous Panzerbrigade 150 who were tasked to create chaos and confusion behind enemy lines (codenamed Operation Greif), they were more likely scouts from the 2. Panzerdivision.