Panzer I, the little tank with no cannon and two machine guns that was the majority of the tanks used in the invasion of Poland and France.
On Saturday, June 18, after we left the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, I saw a sign for the Deutsche PanzerMuseum. We stopped and tour the large facility for a couple of hours. The museum has tanks from World War I to the recent years. The tanks on display are painted and restored and in very good condition. There are so many tanks on display I decided to break them up into categories. This post is World War II main battle tanks.
The museum did not have a Panzer II, but they had a turret. The Panzer II has the same chassis used later on the Marder self-propelled gun.
The Panzer II has a 20mm cannon and a machine gun in the turret.
The Panzer 38(t) was developed in 1935. It has a 37mm gun, like the Panzer II. It was a very reliable tank used early in the war.
Panzer III with a 50mm main gun.
Panzer IV, with a 75mm gun, the main tank of the Wehrmacht on every front from the beginning of the war to the end.
Panzer V, "Panther" with a long-barrel 75mm gun.
Used from 1942 to the end of the war on all fronts.
The Panzer VI "Tiger" tank is the most famous German tank of World War II. It was used in service from 1942 to the end of the war. It was armed with an 88mm gun and had heavy armor. It had reliability problems early. Production ended in 1944 in favor of the Tiger II "King Tiger".
The Tiger II "King Tiger" was a larger more heavily armored version of the Tiger I produced only in the last year year of the war in limited numbers.
