![]() ![]() Soon enough, battlefield realities made both designs obsolete when it was apparent that the 5cm cannon was inadequate for its task unless shooting expensive tungsten ammunition and Panther testing itself showed the base chassis was far from being mature, leading to a quiet termination. Following on that idea, competition arose, leading Rheinmetall to offer its own interpretation on the design about a month later, an artillery observation vehicle with similar specification called the Panzerbeobachtungswagen Panther.Äespite the bulkier design, it used the same 5cm cannon in a dummy barrel resembling the 7.5cm L/70, all in all being an equivalent design to M.A.N.'s recon tank. Apparently the small matter of tank size did not seem to bother him. This resulted in a somewhat lightened Panther that used the much smaller Leopard turret (related to the wheeled Puma design) and the soon to be inadequate 5cm K.W.K 39. Jumping on that, Speer said that the characteristics of the tank were so similar to the Panther that the latter could be used instead. After a rather lengthy debate, Hitler was finally persuaded to approve the lighter 21.9 ton design, while using many existing Panther components to ease production. In 1942 Aufklärungspanzer Panther design was in debate between Hitler (who as always wanted a heavier, better armored design) and the Heer.
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