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This article deals with the history of tanks serving in the German Army from World War I, the interwar period, and the Panzers of the German Wehrmacht during World War II, the Cold War and modern times.〔http://www.onwar.com/tanks/germany/index.htm〕 ==Overview== The development of tanks in World War I began as an attempt to break the stalemate which trench warfare had brought to the Western Front. The British and French both began experimenting in 1915, and deployed tanks in battle from 1916 and 1917 respectively. The Germans, on the other hand, were slower to develop tanks, concentrating on anti-tank weapons. The German response to the modest initial successes of the Allied tanks was the A7V, which, like some other tanks of the period, was based on caterpillar tracks of the type found on the American Holt Tractors. Initially unconvinced that tanks were a serious threat, the High Command ordered just twenty A7Vs, which took part in a handful of actions between March and October, 1918. They suffered from numerous design faults, and Germany actually used more captured British tanks than A7Vs. As it became clear that the tank could play a significant role on the battlefield, Germany began working on designs for both heavy and light tanks, but only a small number of prototypes were completed by the end of the War. After the Armistice, all tanks in German hands were confiscated. Almost all were eventually scrapped, and the various postwar treaties forbade the former Central Powers from building or possessing tanks. On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Although he initially headed a coalition government, he quickly eliminated his government partners. He ignored the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles (1919) --- as had the Allied powers after the first world war ended --- and began rearming, approving the development of many German tank designs he was shown. The German Army first used light Panzer I tanks, along with the Panzer II, but the mainstays were the medium Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs which were released in 1937. The IV became the backbone of Germany's panzer force and the power behind the blitzkrieg. During the invasion of Russia in 1941, the Germans encountered the famous and technologically advanced Soviet T-34 tanks. This led Germany to develop the Panther or Panzer V in response. Its 75mm gun could penetrate the new Soviet tanks. Germany also developed the heavy Tiger I, released in 1942. The Tiger could defeat any Allied tank and was soon joined by the Tiger II, also known as King Tiger, but too few were produced to turn the tide. One note of interest was the poor reliability of the German tanks such as the Panther and Tiger; constant mechanical failures meant that German tank divisions were rarely able to field a full complement of tanks and were often diminished below 50% combat readiness. The book ''The Last Battle'' by Cornelius Ryan makes mention of the 7 million foreign workers who were forcibly brought into Germany to work in the factories and businesses --- many of them in military assembly lines. Ryan specifically writes about these foreign workers in German tank manufacturing, who sabotaged every part they could〔The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan, page 51〕 and may have contributed to the rate of breakdown of German tanks in the field. This especially affected tanks built later in the war (such as the Panther and Tiger) when forced labor had replaced German manpower in their manufacture. In the Battle of Kursk, when the newly arrived Panther tanks moved into their assembly areas, 45 out of 200 experienced mechanical problems requiring repair.〔Frieser, p. 113.〕 A good example was the Großdeutschland Division, which had a brigade of two battalions of new Panther Ausf. D tanks come under its operational control before the battle. After the launch of Operation Citadel, the new Panthers were plagued by technical problems, suffering from engine fires and mechanical breakdowns, many before reaching the battle, in which the division was heavily engaged. Also it may have affected the Großdeutschland Division's non-role in the ensuing epic tank Battle of Prokhorovka, in which it was held in reserve, its Panther tanks not engaging as most were broken down by the time the battle started. It also may have been an issue with the Tiger tanks. The Tiger's reliability problems were well known and documented; Tiger units frequently entered combat understrength due to breakdowns. It was rare for any Tiger unit to complete a road march without losing vehicles due to breakdown. The Jagdtiger, built on a lengthened Tiger II chassis, suffered from a variety of mechanical and technical problems and had frequent breakdowns; ultimately more Jagdtigers were lost to mechanical problems or lack of fuel than to enemy action.〔''Elefant - Jagdtiger - Sturmtiger: Rarities of the Tiger Family''〕 German factories and industry was devastated by the end of World War II, but by the 1950s, the nation began to look at designing new tanks. The next tank design started as a collaborative project between Germany and France in the 1950s, but the partnership ended, and the final design was ordered by the Bundeswehr, production of the German Leopard 1 starting in 1965. In total, 6,485 Leopard I tanks were built, of which 4,744 were battle tanks and 1741 were utility and anti-aircraft variants, not including eighty prototypes and pre-series vehicles. The Leopard quickly became a standard of European forces, and eventually served as the main battle tank in Germany. It was superseded by the Leopard 2. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tanks in the German Army」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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