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Why was the Pz III Ausf N ever produced?


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I am really curious to why the Pz III production continued to 1943. I think the Stug III would have been a much better use of the Pz III chassis. The Stug had more firepower better armor, and was cheaper to produce. Cost of single Ausf G was 82500RM making it cheaper than PzKpfw III Ausf M at 103163RM.

Any thoughts? What am I overlooking?

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nothing, just an example of lack of direction on production. The only argument that could have been made was that with only the pz4 tank being produced in decent numbers while the bugs in the panther were being slowly worked out, the pz 3 was necessary to keep tank numbers up. This holds no salt with me however, as it was simply to inferior to be worthwhie:)

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From "Encyclopedia .." it seems the main reason for the "N" was the better AP capability of the 75/L24 in comparison to the 5cm L/60 when firing shaped charge projectiles plus the more effective HE round.

Only 37 were converted to "N" and 663 produced (M completed as N as far as I understand).

Might have had the advantage of using aleady existing production facilities for the III vs. converting them to produce different tanks.

Nolloff

[ December 25, 2002, 12:08 PM: Message edited by: Nolloff ]

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I think it was actually the HE that mattered, the N version with it's short 75 converted the III to an infantry support tank at a time when the IV was convereted to a battle tank. Doctrine may have played a role here.

Also I think the reason to maintain the PzKpfw III production line was to keep up tank production in a time when tanks were being lost faster than they could be built.

The fact that the StuG was cheaper may be interesting to those who command the ecenomy (or play the tactical battles ;) ), but it is hardly an argument to the tank troops who would actually lose 600+ tanks if Pz III production was converted to assault guns in mid-42 :eek:

Besides a tank is simply more versatile than a assault gun so there is more at stake then money/production time.

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Originally posted by Liken:

I am really curious to why the Pz III production continued to 1943. I think the Stug III would have been a much better use of the Pz III chassis. The Stug had more firepower better armor, and was cheaper to produce. Cost of single Ausf G was 82500RM making it cheaper than PzKpfw III Ausf M at 103163RM.

Any thoughts? What am I overlooking?

Two things, I think. First, the N was designed to be used as an anti-infantry tank (IIRC, it was used as an anti-infantry weapon in Tiger battalions, among other uses). It has a decent HE shell, a decent ROF, and lots of MGs, all of which would be useful.

Second, the cost-per-unit number is only useful if you have the capacity to produce the unit on already existing production lines. By which I mean - if you have a StuG factory, you already know how much it will cost to make the StuG. If you *don't* have the StuG factory, you will first have to build one and only *then* can you produce the new StuGs at the cheaper rate. Since I don't believe that there was a lot of excess capacity at the StuG factories, the cost of converting existing Mk III factories over to StuG factories, plus the time that the factories would be idle while this took place, may have made converting existing factories over prohibitive.

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As others have said, understrength units were probably a big part of the decision. The Germans have a long record of keeping substandard systems in production, with upgrading, in order to keep units at the front equipped. During the Spring of 1942 the Panzer Divisions were very under equipped, having lost a ton of vehicles and weapons of all sorts during the Stalingrand debacle. They generally did not take something out of production until they had something new started up in another factory. This allowed them to slipstream stuff in and out of production.

A great example of this is the PzIV. Yeah, it still had some amount of effectiveness even as the war ended, but it was obviously equalled or outclassed on all fronts. It was officially killed off BUT parallel tank production (i.e. Panther) couldn't keep up with demand so the PzIV kept rolling off assembly lines until the war ended.

Steve

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