7wt

Hey guys I have a question that I sure has been beat to death but I am search challenged so here goes nothing. I am in the market for a Christmas present to myself and since I always wanted a Tamiya tank since way back I decided now might be a good time to get one. I am looking at either a Jagdpanther, a Panther or a Sherman for my first and only tank for a while. I know the Sherman is a good and reliable tank but how does the Jagdpanther and the Panther fare? Would those be a decent first tank as far as running reliability? I am not looking to do any IR battles but I would like th run the thing without having to worry about throwing tracks all the time or something breaking. Thanks!

yellowshaker

My Feedback: (1)

I can tell you that both of those german monsters are great runners! I have seen them in action often enough at the NEAD battle days. Very good tanks!

Panther G

The Panther would be a better first tank as the Jagd you need to steer the whole vehicle to aim the gun. Takes some getting used too. The 2 variants are both good runners but i would suggest a tank with a turret for a first timmer.

sevoblast

Panther all the way. Great runner OTB and a fairly easy build.

pcomm1

All three tanks are outstanding and fun to build in my opinion.

My personal preference is the Jagdpanther, now and I have built all three.

I like the Jagdpanther's looks best.

And if you do decide to add the Tamiya Battle Unit, no hassle installing it latter.

Either way it is easy to aim the Jagd if you do fight it. And if you don't who cares?

But bringing your main gun on target by rotating the turret, and in battle, so slowly too (LOL); with the Jagd you skip that part.

Practice and you just drive up and aim the Jagd at your target, fire – score hits and quickly scoot off, nothing easier.

Just install road wheel bearings during the initial build and then run it as built.

And or upgrade your Jagdpanther over the years.

And remember, no bad choices amongst Tamiya's Sherman, Panther (3 years later) and the Jagdpanther.

Viper54

My Feedback: (1)

Panther is my choice

Panther G

Agreed. Best Tank all around. Lots of nice detail and many upgrade parts, if your really into building fighters.

pcomm1

2 cents and why:

Depends completely on your build criteria and what tank you like best. In almost all situations the Panther G is bad and to make it best will take some work and cash! LOL.

The 250 or so Jagdpanthers built during WWII had a pretty record and make for an interesting looking model.

The Panther never really lived up to military expectations and that is one reason why the Pz4 stayed in production.

The Tamiya Panther G is a good but flawed kit, kinda repeating history at 1/16 scale.

Though now easily corrected by throwing some dollars and after market parts to gain some performance out of it for running at tank club battle events.

But that is a very small part of the package found in building and running rc armor models.

For running around the yard, park or on the carpet, all the Tamiya kits are of sufficient performance and most are just fine built stock.

And based on real experience with the Jagdpanther &Panther G builds: in side by side running the Jagd is a superb running model; slightly better than the Panther, with both using the same upgrade parts.

And without those upgrade parts, both models were not as good (read totally inferior) as my Tamiya Sherman, Pz4J or Tiger IE or the KV-1.

Probably, the Tiger IE is still the best all around Tamiya Battle Unit Tank, but 7wt stated he is not interested in building a tank club basher. LOL.

And for tank club battles any well built heavy tank will work. 9 hits is what is most important. And there is a lot more fun to be found than modeling armor for just that criteria. LOL.

Panther G

I will have to disagree completely as far as the Panther G goes as being Bad. It is consistently THE BEST fighting tank on the battlefields. That and the Pershing. There are plenty of Panther owners out there that will testify to this.
the Panther had some small issues when the kit was first released but they have all been addressed.
Any problems that do or may still exist are easily taken care of.
I do not like having to reply to a post in this manner but your statements about the Panther are totally off base and warentless.
Now, all my comments are based on using and seeing all the above mentioned tanks on the field of battle, IR ofcourse.
the KV has allmost zero gun depression, which eliminates the use of slope defense. the Tiger is the Tiger. Always reliable.
So still IMO the Panther G is hands down the best battle tank Tamiya makes.

pcomm1

Sorry, but it is a bunch of added after market parts that make the Tamiya Panther G any good, and heck all the other Tamiya WWII kits are kind of like that too for tank club games.

That dirty little secret is now out.

Them Tamiya rc tank engineering boys seem to stop just short of making anything really good...and that is why Daryl Turner got invented! LOL.

Like who cares about slope defense, the KV did pretty pretty good clobbering those Nat–Zee panzers on the Russian Stepps. LOL.

Just stay away from little 1/16 scale hills, Panther G. Fight smarter.

But do tell me how does the KV work in your Danville football tank games or how does it fight the 90 mph scale speed Pz3 and Stugs buzzing around in those free for alls you guys like to video. LOL.

Importantly, does poor barrel depression make it any less of a wide receiver tank? LOL.

I buy kits from Karen and Danville does look like fun, but build one tank for that event rule book, and build the rest to be really cool, I say!

I ain't offering 2 cents of stuff to you cause you know it all and good for you and or you are now a sales rep for Tamiya Panther G kits.

Which is it? LOL.

I do imagine Tamiya has a big warehouse full of those Panther G dogs they can not give away.

LOL.

But 7wt is not interested in playing with the 10 or 20 or 4000 something guys at Danville.

He wants to build a ONE cool Tamiya tank.

And I am just sharing what I know to be true from sitting down and building the tanks discussed and I have a pretty good idea now of what it takes.

Bad in the Panther G case means build & run your Panther G stock. It is for sure a rc tank clunker.

And Panther Ggood means: If you wantthe Panther Gbuilt without any rc setup compromise and to run really really good, it needs:

Wozwasnt

Where did you read that? Everything I've read about the Panter says it was a great tank once they'd ironed out the intital problems and the only reason the PzIV was kept in production was to make up the numbers.

From late 1942 to 1945 some 6000 Panthers were built (less then 3 years) where as just under 9000 PzIV's were built from 1937 to 1945. Panther production is even more remarkable when you consider the fact that the factories were under constant bombing.

Darksheer

perhaps actually reading the persons post might be of help here
and reading each others

the original poster stated he is not interested in IR he wants to build a tank and drive it around

we have one poster talking IR and various things
another talking war production and real life comparisons with the IR posts
and people talking about kit issues with the tamiya panther kit which are defunked by people stating the opposite

how about some links to reviews about these problems or the lack of them or at least link a thread here on the forums

the guy wants recommendations on a problem free RC tank made by tamiya

personally I would recommend the jagdPanther as I have heard of no issues with the kit or in building it altho I cannot find any reviews on the internet the forums here seem ro have no issues with the Jagdpanther kit.... the same cannot be said for the panther kit


this thread is very confusing

pcomm1

2 cents on Tamiya tank confusion:

Here is a brief breakout on the build criteria used for Tamiya RC Tanks, as I have learned to understand it:

1a. Build stock to run around on your wife's carpet: all Tamiya WWII tanks do that fine and no modifications are needed.

1b. Build stock to run around outdoors: all Tamiya WWII tanks will do that, but usually don't go to very far without some difficulty and don't tackle the terrain you generally want to cover, at least not very well.

2a. Build to run outdoors with better performance using metal tracks: add bearings, a gearbox mount brace, an improved idler system and a metal elevation arm and remove & glue the black clutch gear in the rotation unit solid (re-install gear after it dries)and your tracks stay on bettergoing over challenging terrain.

2b.Build to run outdoors with better performance using kit tracks: add a gearbox mount brace, an improved idler spring return system and a metal elevation arm and remove & glue the black clutch gear in the rotation unit solid (re-install gear after it dries) and your tracks stay on better going over challenging terrain. Could be a pattern is developing here!

3. Build to run and fight at tank club events: expect to add all the modifications for better over all reliable performance as listed above.

4. Build torun, fight and win at tank club events, expect to add all the modifications plus stronger transmissions and more powerful motors, unless your about ten years old and a born natural with your dad's transmitter (then any old rc tank basher will do).

5. Build your tank to look great and let it sit on the shelf while never getting it to run right. Seems to be the most common Tamiya build criteria, intentional or not. Buy RTR is the common fix recommendation or add the after market parts to your Tamiya build.LOL.

6. WWII Panther Industrial Design History:

True, the Panther and Jagdpanther were two of the best designed tanks during WWII.

But they were not the best fighting tanks of WWII and that is a big difference.

What shoots reliably everyday is far more important than a broken down, brilliantly designed,unreliable tank.Specially if your the guy being shot at.

In action, the Panthers did not live up to there design promise. But that does not mean Panther's were not feared when they did show up on the battlefield, they were respected during there day.

The Panther created serious problems for the offensive German Army. They broke down and did not achieve their purpose during the Third Invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany. There reliability was terrible and they caught fire easily, as reported by the top panzer generals. Yes, Panther tank production was higher than Tiger I tanks (the Panther was cheaper to build), but production from a now huge German manufacturing base was not much higher than the long production run of the Panzer IV.

The Panther's simplified final drive system became the single major cause of breakdowns for the tank and was a problem that was never corrected. A tank that can't get to the fight is useless and that is why the PZ4J was still around in 1945.

And the Soviets reported the early Panthers transmissions and engines to be junk.All this info is easy to find online, just go and Google and read, but the best info is found at the US Army history web sites.

YHR

I also read that the Soviets did not even want the Tigers and Panthers when they captured them.. They would far sooner capture a PZ1V, which they could use, and rebuild into something else. There are a lot of soviet assault guns built on the PZ1V chassis, and I don't ever recall seeing a picture of anything built out of a Panther or a Tiger

RodgerB

I am building the Tamiya Panther G at this time and for your first Tank it will be fine and you will enjoy it. As the others have said there are a ton of hop-up items out there and it all depends on how much you can spend, not how much you want to spend? All parts are available for the errors in judgement from Tamiya USA. I am super detailing mine and I have settled in for the winter with the build. If I can be of any help feel free to contact me.
r

Panther G

The so called dirty little secrets "now being out would have made sense 2 years ago but, this is simply nonsense. OK so you have a favorite brand/ model. OK. don't go bashing a tank that literally hundreds of people use every day with little or no mods or upgrades what so ever.

Darksheer

2 points

the simplified drive was designed for a panther that weighed 12+ tonnes less than what was actuallly produced when the flaw was discovered drivers were taught how to run the tank within these limitations and the problem went away with very little loss in performance.... also most of the drive failures were from sabotage from the slave labor being used at the factory
its a documented fact that during the rebuild of the littlefield panther they found a cigarette butt jammed into one of the oil tubes used to lubricate the drives and that the drives were the easiest part of the rebuild do to the bolts all being loose. also they spoke to surviors who stated they messed up the pours and machineing to make the gears brittle so they would fail anything to thwart the germans was done.

the russians didnt like the tiger or panther for the simple reason they could not fix them and thier crews had major problems operating the tank due to its complexity

second point

it was the other way around the germans captured huge amounts of russian artilllery and guns and used them on thier vehicles im sure the russians made some but the vast majority were made by the germans
The marder series is a prime example of this
the panther was concidered the best tank in the world till the late 50's france used them till then and some other countries did as well
and for reliability the panthers gun had zero issues which kinda derails your reliabilty claim. most panthers were in the defencive/delaying roll at this point and when mr reliable allied tank needs to close within 400 yards to pentrate "reliabley" ill take the immobilized panther 1800 meters away punching holes "reliably" at a rate of 12/15 rounds a minute over anything. specially in most cases something was behind it hooking up chains to drag the thing off

and honestly i take any US military history claims concerning ww2 with a grain of salt

PS sorry about the spelling

thecommander

I have owned every one of the Tamiya IR tanks except for the Pzr IV. I just sold my JP and KV1 recently and have battled them all in the hottest test bed for IR tanking, the AAF Tank Mus. in Danville, VA.

The Panther G and the M26 Pershing are without a doubt the best IR fighters. Any unreliablility of the "Flawed" Panther is is blown way out of proportion. It is VERY reliable tank bone stock. I got one of the earliest Panthers and built it overnight in my motorhome in the museum parking lot the day I bought it from Karen. A hastey build should have brought out the worst in the beast. The only issue I had was the spacing of one drive sprocket which was fixed in 30 seconds with some tape to shim it out. I ran it bone stock for 4 years til this past fall. I added a D T elevation arm after two years and finally wore our a right gear box battling with the boys from Texas Armor this past September. I finished the day driving maily in reverse and no one noticed. Daryl is a great friend and make super stuff to make any tank perform even better.

It is the best and most reliable tamiya tank to date. It is just that simple. I M H O !

Like I always say about opinions... There are like rectums, everybody has one and they all stink....LOL.

Buy whatever Tamiya tank you like. There are none that are "too much trouble to run" they all have their faults but none are significant enought to rule it out.

Good luck and have fun, Bob

pcomm1

And exactly why is the AAF the hottest test bed for IR tanking? LOL. All 9 of you regular guys believe that or what? LOL.

Sounds like another one of your glib rectum opinions to me and not based on Panther G build facts &history.

Your not only wrong, but your words are a clear stretch of the Panther G facts and build history.

The kit put Impact Panther G FIXparts on the map right or wrong. LOL.

Facts are facts and a kit built over night speaks for itself and why are you proud of that?

I have built all the WWII kits too, and I would not accept the build level you boast about.

Yikes, good enough is NOT and perhaps that is all we are really talking about.

All the guys who first ran Panther Gs at Danville, way before you did, are the people who first posted online the laundry list of issues and complaints and effectively killed the buzz on Tamiya's new kit 3 years ago.

They also told us all where to go and buy the fix parts and all that seemed pretty smelly 3 years ago. LOL.

Your "rc tank build standards" seem sketchy and "one drive sprocket which was fixed in 30 seconds with some tape to shim it out" is completely unacceptable as a fix solution for any of my builds and MANY WOULD AGREE THAT DOING THAT JUST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH.

PLUS the statement says it all in regards to where you are coming from. Your Tamiya build solutions seem schlocky, cheap, trashy and that doesn't fit the fine craftsmanship level championed in the Tamiya model world.

And if your were really such great friends with Daryl Turner, perhaps you would be running more of his parts and his superior rc tank craftemanship would rub off on you; rather than settling for a base basher level build. And those are facts.

Or did you sell of those WWII models to go and build one RIGHT?

Happy New Year.

pcomm1

So you don't like well written history and facts; figures. And honestly, all those grains of salt have given you dementia. And no one talked about the Panther as the best at anything in the 1950's plus France was just using left over WWII obsolete junk because they were broke during those years. LOL.

Darksheer

actually I do like well written history and facts and unfortunatly not much of that comes out of america
it seems to most in america ww2 started on december 7th 1941 and american won the war all by themselves
altho they had a few brits along to give them directions

and no I stated the panther was concidered the best medium tank in the world till the mid 50's
better check your facts son
the panther got put back into production after the war and france fielded the tank till the late 50's because they couldnt find anything better
also they were not broke either they had a huge influx of war winning american money

sorry to bust your version of history

and dont bother firing more insults about rectal or dementia issues your honestly not worth the effort of a second reply
go read a book or watch more top 10 greatest on the military channel
im sure thats all the history you need

sevoblast

OK, the purpose of this thread seems to have digressed.

To answer your main question, the Panther, Jagdpanther, and Tiger 1 are the best German runners out of the box. I have not personally built a P4 yet, but judging from what I've heard from experienced Tamiya builders who have, it also is an excellent runner and performer out of the box. For American tanks, both the Pershing and the Sherman are also excellent runners OTB. The only problem I've ever heard of for the P4 is the suspension spring system, at full no load deflection condition, the leaf spring may come out. Schumo has a very effective and inexpensive fix for this, simply a new set of leaf springs that are a little longer than the stockers. It is also entirely possible that Tamiya has or will address that problem also.

The only two problems with the original Panther kits were as follows:

The drive sprockets were marginally too narrow. Tamiya's temporary fix for that, which we also did in the field before Tamiya announced it. was to put a piece of card stock, about the thickness of an index card, between the two halves of the sprockets. Worked like a charm with the stock tracks, which by the way said stock tracks are very robust. Tamiya then provided a new set of sprockets to anyone who wrote in.

The hole in the turret mantlet that took the main gun was a little too large. The weapon worked well and recoiled and returned to battery well, but was simply a little sloppy when driving. I do not know if Tamiya has addressed this problem now, but a very simple fix is the DP05 Panther Barrel Sleeve on the etoarmour.com sight. This part is installed from inside, literally a push in installation, and removes the slop at least from the older kits.

The Jagdpanther when introduced did not have these two problems, as it is a totally different upper hull as far as the main tube is concerned, and by introduction time of the JP the drive sprocket problem had been rectified.

Judging from the number of Panther and JP parts I sell, there's a WHOLE lot of Panther/JP kits out there. I sell more cosmetic parts for Panther than all others combined except for the King Tiger.

Now, if you want to build a BTTW fighter, then yes, there's lots of other things you CAN do, but your statement was a romping stomping fighter was not your desire. Ergo, you can choose just about any Tamiya tank and have a great runner built completely stock.

The arguments as to how good the real Panther was and what the Russians, French, or Togo Islanders thought of that tank are for another thread. The purpose of this thread was to answer your questions about the Tamiya models. and I hope this little missive has at least helped in that respect.

BIGMIG

Directected specificly to Darksheer.

This is a tamiya post and directly does not pertain to me in general,however i do read most of the posts but try to stay out of those that don't pertain to me in my hobbies.

Now i don't care what you have to say about Tamiya tanks,that don't concern me.

But being an ex-military man and who has a very high reguard for my country,I would caution you to use care in any remarks that could be taken as a slap in the face to a typical american.I'm very thin skined when it comes to remarks of those natures.Now WWII has been over for many,many years now and a lot of good people lost their lives because of it.Most of the history is well documented and very easy for one to read,study,and to try and understand if it is possible to understand how a hand full of people could bring about such disstruction and death.A lot of countrys as i write this has fellow countrymen who are laying their life on the line as we set here writing and playing on this tank forum in total safety.Your and my freedom is still being payed for with the lives of good people as i speak who i would guess would much rather be here posting about building a model tank than having someone trying to kill thier ass.

You are walking a thin line here and again i would use a little restraint in comments.

My personel opinion is i don't much care if you like us,or don't like us as a country.Save that for your buddies on your side of the fence who i'm sure will injoy it.

One thing i have allways liked here on RCU is the fact that it is open to anyone around the world and it is fun to be able to inter-act
with people who one would never have the chance to normaly do this with.

I have allways concluded we never was "officialy" at war until the bombing of Pearl Harbor and i believe it was made official on December,8,1941 when we declared war on Japan and Hitler declared war on the Usa shortly after that.Now if this is incorrect you can straighten me out on your date of when we was at war in europe and japan (official declared war).



BIGMIG

Darksheer

bigmig your dates stated are completely correct your president did declare on the 8th. I have been serving now over 25 years and I have the utmost respect fof american service personnel today and in the past and I have enough friends and relatives that have died overseas as well and I wish they were all here to be able to post on a forum as well being we work with american forces constantly heck half my base is america up here. the comment I made to the armchar general was that he deemed himself correct and everyone else wrong and franky america nor canada for that matter teaches history anymore and people end up being misinformed "i saw it on TV it must be true" there were a few things going on in the thread untill one individial started slamming and insulting people and thats when i made my post

thecommander

Relax John/C4ISAR or you are going to have a stroke or something, okay.

My rectum reference was not to any specific person. Mine smells just as much as yours or anyone elses. It is just that some my opinions are recognized in court.

I have always been impressed with the Panther G and JP from Tamiya and I still am. Yes. I'm proud to have built a Tamiya tank overnight. I did it with my 12 year old daughter and we had a blast doing it. See.... it was all about doing something FUN with her. Which is what this hobby is supposed to be about...fun. I also have taken several months to build a Tamiya tank. The overnight Panther G was done on a bet. Not only did I win that bet, but I got to battle my Panther the next day. I was one of the first guys at Danville with a Panther G. Not a "Johnny come lately" as you might seem to imply. As for the quality of the build, is was done very quickly but quality and craftsmanship was not left out. It was later partially disassembled for painting, but it ran just fine for all these years. Daryl makes great parts of the highest quality. I simply can't justify the expense of all his fine parts in each tank I build. Whether the tank is for me personally , a build intended for sale or a comissioned build, I add whatever is necessary for a sound reliable tamiya tank. I have been a mechanic for over 32 years and enjoy seeing how long something will last (especially stone stock parts) before they fail. I enjoyed doing the interim "Schlocky" / Rube Goldberg fix and getting it back into battle, cheap, fast and easy. I didn't shove it asside and wait for better parts or someone to bail me out. I fixed it and rejoined my team in battle. It is these field fixes and quick solutions that keep many of these fine tanks in battle. Just ask Sgt. Cullen about his hedge-chopper for the Shermans in Normandy. Tamiya later sent me the repair parts but it did not keep me out of action.

You build beautiful tanks and sell them for a lot of money. I'm sure they run as fine as they look. I would look forward to seeing them in person. My goal is to build reliable, solid, fair priced Tamiya tanks for guys who want to get into IR tank battles without busting the bank. Just because someone doesn't do it YOUR way doesn't mean they are wrong, careless of incompetant.

As for Danville being the "test bed" that I mentioned, I guess the best man to ask that of is Mr. Tamiya. They sent representatives to the AAF Tank Museum for feedback from that battlefield for some reason. Has he made a visit to you yet?

I think we had 20 tankers at the last event. I'm not sure exactly what consitutes a regular but I have not missed a battle-weekend since September of 2006 so I guess I am. I'd say the core group is made up of about 25 or so tankers.

You can LOL all you like John, but I don't hate you. I would look forward to having you as my guest at Danville sometime. We have never turned anyone away. We have rules to keep things fair and if your tank can't abide by them you can borrow one of mine. You can build the Ferrari and I'll build the Corvette. It is all about having fun..... I'm having a blast with my tanks. Are you?

Dear 7wt, I'm sure you will enjoy your tank. Good luck. Build and paint it YOUR way.

Have a Happy New Year to everyone!