Panther Tank Transmission details

Here's a quick view of a ZF 7 speed Panther tank transmission before final assembly.

This vehicle is part of the collection of the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation. For more information check out www.milvehtechfound.com

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Panther
• Tank
• Maybach
• ZF

[teamwounder]

this gearbox has no synchros, correct?

[caddydave]

2nd-7th gears are synchronized..They may not be real clear in the video, but I have pictures of them.

[cokie58]

Wow! Now that is true dedication. I can't begin to imagine the amount of work it took to restore that mechanism. Great vid.

[fearnoevilexceptbush]

People, I envy you! Beautiful work.

[smacman68]

I completely agree, and in a way, that is my point. In war, you really only have one shot at it. Either it works, or it doesn't. In a normal situation, if it breaks down, you could look at the failure, design a fix, and implement the fix. No such luxury in war. Plus, the failure info died with the crew, and that info never made it back to the engineers. Thank God that Hitler was a fool, because if he actually listened to his generals, the war could've ended diferently.

[TransAmDrifter]

@smacman68 It's not about what's good enough... Hitler had no idea on how to think, when things are going bad. German tanks (and overall equipment) was much ahead of their era, but needed sufficient service and logistics. Long and multiple frontlines just killed it, plus Hitler's stupid ideas of changing plans to worse (bombing civilian targets in BoB), halting what's needed and many other. Second thing was too little time for engineers to reproject what's prone to failure.

[EATSLEEPDRIVE2002]

so the tanks driven like a car with a manual transmission then?

[LYinKansas]

new bearings shes ready to go not terrible

[mihailolord]

ford gap :D

[GalaticSpaceHero]

@smacman68 Thats about it! I remmber a DD day celebration of Normandy and a 4 Star American General said by the time we invaded Europe Germany had already lost. They had no Fuel, All there Infantry was still on foot, Most of there Army was Horse drawn.There supplies were being pulled by Horses.There Airforce was wipped out of the sky. Food shortages, they were starving when Allies pushed into Germany.

[smacman68]

I watched a documentary on the Military Channel, and they gave three reasons why Germany lost WW2. The first was trying to fight two fronts at the same time. The second was Hitler trying to micromanage the war without listening to his generals, and the third was the over engineering prevalent with all German designs. They just couldn't get over insisting on high quality, intricate designs. Like this transmission. Sometimes good enough is good enough. Just ask the Russians.

[Natalia99a]

What are the gear ratios for this transmission?

[agt155]

These are the guys from 'Pimp my Tank'.

[sdremish]

Much respect for your patience!