Pz.IV C

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This page is about the German medium tank Pz.IV C. For other versions, see Pz.IV (Family).
Pz.IV C
germ_pzkpfw_iv_ausf_c.png
GarageImage Pz.IV C.jpg
ArtImage Pz.IV C.png
Pz.IV C
AB RB SB
1.3 1.3 1.3
Class:
Research:2 900 Specs-Card-Exp.png
Purchase:700 Specs-Card-Lion.png
Show in game

Description

The Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausführung C (Panzer IV C) (Sd.Kfz. Index: Sd.Kfz. 161) is the third variant of the Panzerkampfwagen IV medium tank family, a family of German medium tanks that saw the most production and served on all fronts in many intense conflicts throughout World War II. While the Tiger and Panther are more well-known today, the Panzer IV was the core of Blitzkrieg tactics. The Panzer IVs saw action in all of Germany's battle theatres and were the only German medium tank line that remained in continuous production throughout the war. The development of Panzer IVs began in secrecy in the mid-1930s, since the Germans were theoretically prohibited from developing such vehicles by the Treaty of Versailles, with the first variant, the Panzer IV A, being assembled. Since this was the first variant, there was still plenty of space for refinement. The development of the Panzer IV A version led to the creation of two essentially identical versions, B and C. Armed with a short-barrelled 75 mm Kampfwagenkanone (KwK) 37 L/24 howitzer-like tank gun, which was primarily designed to fire high-explosive shells to support infantry and attack fortifications. The Panzer IVs was originally intended for infantry support, with the Panzer IIIs was intended to engage enemy armoured fighting vehicles. However, in the wake of the formidable T-34, the Germans saw the Panzer IV as having more development potential, with a larger turret ring to equip more powerful weapons, resulting in the creation of the Panzer IV F2.

Introduced in the Closed Beta Test for Ground Forces before Update 1.41, the Panzer IV C was designed for infantry support, much like its American counterpart, the M8 HMC. By firing low-velocity shells in an arc, the Panzer IV C can readily strike opposing vehicles while remaining behind low obstacles. However, since anti-tank weapons were not advanced during its time period, the armour protection was limited to anti-tank rifles. Nonetheless, the Panzer IV C will present players with unique insights into this unique German medium tank family, which will eventually be at the core of German Blitzkrieg tactics throughout World War II.

General info

Survivability and armour

Smoke grenades
Creation of a smoke screen in front of the vehicle
Armourfront / side / back
Hull30 / 15 / 15
Turret30 / 15 / 15
Crew5 people
Visibility99 %

Armour type:

  • Rolled homogeneous armour
  • Cast homogeneous armour (Cupola)
Armour Front (Slope angle) Sides Rear Roof
Hull 30 mm (11°) Front plate
12 mm (72°) Front glacis
30 mm (14°) Lower glacis
15 mm 15 mm 12 mm
Turret 30 mm Turret front
30 mm Gun mantlet
15 mm 15 mm 10 mm
Cupola 15 mm 15 mm 15 mm 10 mm

Notes:

  • Suspension wheels and tracks are 15 mm thick.
  • Belly armour is 5 mm thick.
  • Hull underside right above tracks is only 5 mm thick.

Mobility

Speedforward / back
AB47 / 9 km/h
RB and SB43 / 8 km/h
Number of gears6 forward
1 back
Weight19.2 t
Engine power
AB572 hp
RB and SB300 hp
Power-to-weight ratio
AB29.8 hp/t
RB and SB15.6 hp/t
Game Mode Max Speed (km/h) Weight (tons) Engine power (horsepower) Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
Forward Reverse Stock Upgraded Stock Upgraded
Arcade 47 9 19.2 465 572 24.22 29.79
Realistic 43 8 265 300 13.8 15.63

Modifications and economy

Repair costBasic → Reference
AB126 → 170 Sl icon.png
RB105 → 142 Sl icon.png
SB114 → 154 Sl icon.png
Total cost of modifications2 975 Rp icon.png
900 Sl icon.png
Talisman cost190 Ge icon.png
Crew training200 Sl icon.png
Experts1 000 Sl icon.png
Aces20 Ge icon.png
Research Aces96 000 Rp icon.png
Reward for battleAB / RB / SB
10 / 10 / 20 % Sl icon.png
100 / 100 / 100 % Rp icon.png
Modifications
Mobility Protection Firepower
Mods new tank traks.png
Tracks
Research:
200 Rp icon.png
Cost:
60 Sl icon.png
60 Ge icon.png
Mods new tank suspension.png
Suspension
Research:
135 Rp icon.png
Cost:
40 Sl icon.png
40 Ge icon.png
Mods new tank break.png
Brake System
Research:
135 Rp icon.png
Cost:
40 Sl icon.png
40 Ge icon.png
Mods new tank filter.png
Filters
Research:
185 Rp icon.png
Cost:
55 Sl icon.png
55 Ge icon.png
Mods new tank transmission.png
Transmission
Research:
240 Rp icon.png
Cost:
75 Sl icon.png
75 Ge icon.png
Mods new tank engine.png
Engine
Research:
240 Rp icon.png
Cost:
75 Sl icon.png
75 Ge icon.png
Mods tank tool kit.png
Improved Parts
Research:
200 Rp icon.png
Cost:
60 Sl icon.png
60 Ge icon.png
Mods extinguisher.png
Improved FPE
Research:
135 Rp icon.png
Cost:
40 Sl icon.png
40 Ge icon.png
Mods tank reinforcement ger.png
Crew Replenishment
Research:
185 Rp icon.png
Cost:
55 Sl icon.png
55 Ge icon.png
Mods new tank horizontal aiming.png
Horizontal Drive
Research:
200 Rp icon.png
Cost:
60 Sl icon.png
60 Ge icon.png
Mods tank cannon.png
Adjustment of Fire
Research:
135 Rp icon.png
Cost:
40 Sl icon.png
40 Ge icon.png
Mods tank ammo.png
75mm_kwk_37_40_HEAT_ammo_pack
Research:
135 Rp icon.png
Cost:
40 Sl icon.png
40 Ge icon.png
Mods new tank vertical aiming.png
Elevation Mechanism
Research:
185 Rp icon.png
Cost:
55 Sl icon.png
55 Ge icon.png
Mods smoke screen.png
Smoke grenade
Research:
185 Rp icon.png
Cost:
55 Sl icon.png
55 Ge icon.png
Mods art support.png
Artillery Support
Research:
240 Rp icon.png
Cost:
75 Sl icon.png
75 Ge icon.png
Mods tank ammo.png
75mm_ger_Smoke_ammo_pack
Research:
240 Rp icon.png
Cost:
75 Sl icon.png
75 Ge icon.png
  1. "Parts" and "FPE": you need to be able to repair field damage as well as extinguish fires.
  2. "Horizontal Drive" and "Hl.Gr 38B": this will increase your turret's traverse speed and the HEAT shell will help deal with more heavily armoured tanks.
  3. Other firepower modifications.
  4. Then the remaining modifications.

Armaments

Main armament

Ammunition80 rounds
Reloadbasic crew → aces
4.3 → 3.3 s
Vertical guidance-10° / 20°
Main article: KwK37 (75 mm)
75 mm KwK37 Turret rotation speed (°/s) Reloading rate (seconds)
Mode Capacity Vertical Horizontal Stabilizer Stock Upgraded Full Expert Aced Stock Full Expert Aced
Arcade 80 -10°/+20° ±180° N/A 13.3 18.4 22.4 24.8 26.4 4.29 3.80 3.50 3.30
Realistic 8.3 9.8 11.9 13.2 14.0

Ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition Type of
warhead
Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
10 m 100 m 500 m 1,000 m 1,500 m 2,000 m
K.Gr.rot Pz. APCBC 52 51 45 39 34 30
Hl.Gr 38B HEAT 80 80 80 80 80 80
Sprgr. 34 HE 10 10 10 10 10 10
Shell details
Ammunition Type of
warhead
Velocity
(m/s)
Projectile
mass (kg)
Fuse delay
(m)
Fuse sensitivity
(mm)
Explosive mass
(TNT equivalent) (g)
Ricochet
0% 50% 100%
K.Gr.rot Pz. APCBC 385 6.8 1.2 14 102.4 48° 63° 71°
Hl.Gr 38B HEAT 450 4.57 0.05 0.1 872.1 62° 69° 73°
Sprgr. 34 HE 420 5.74 0.2 0.1 686 79° 80° 81°
Smoke shell characteristics
Ammunition Velocity
(m/s)
Projectile
mass (kg)
Screen radius
(m)
Screen deploy
time (s)
Screen hold
time (s)
Explosive mass
(TNT equivalent) (g)
K.Gr.Rot Nb. 423 6.2 9 5 20 50

Ammo racks

Full
ammo
1st
rack empty
2nd
rack empty
3rd
rack empty
4th
rack empty
5th
rack empty
6th
rack empty
7th
rack empty
8th
rack empty
9th
rack empty
Visual
discrepancy
80 71 (+9) 65 (+15) 56 (+24) 50 (+30) 42 (+38) 34 (+46) 26 (+54) (+77) (+0) No
Ammo racks of the Pz.IV C

Notes:

  • Racks only disappear after all shells in the rack have been fired.
  • Turret empty: 50 (+30) shells.
  • Flank empty: 26 (+54) shells.

Machine guns

Ammunition2 400 rounds
Belt capacity150 rounds
Reloadbasic crew → aces
10.4 → 8.0 s
Fire rate900 shots/min
Main article: MG34 (7.92 mm)
7.92 mm MG34
Mount Capacity (Belt) Fire rate Vertical Horizontal
Coaxial 2,400 (150) 900 N/A N/A

Usage in battles

The Panzer IV Ausf. C is a fine tank in Rank I due to its high powered yet low-velocity cannon. It is often capable of annihilating an enemy vehicle with a single HE or HEAT shell, regardless of the angle of the enemy's armour. It has a fair amount of armour, however, due to the lack of an actual slope, it may seem considerably more fragile than some Soviet vehicles when facing AP shells. Against Rank I, it is often wiser to close in with the enemy vehicle, counting on the slower turret speed of the Soviet machines, allowing the player to circle around them with ease and deliver devastating shots. Bear in mind that while this tank can easily obliterate any vehicle at its own BR, against higher rank enemies the relatively poor penetration of the gun and very slow shell travel speed can become a problem. Avoiding direct encounters, and using flanking manoeuvres is advisable.

Regarding gameplay, the "Panzer Kampfwagen IV Ausführung C" can be a difficult tank to use. The reason is that while armour and speed are comparable with other tanks of its rank, the gun clearly shows its roots as an infantry support weapon, not designed to fight other tanks. With its low muzzle velocity and low penetration values of basic ammunition, compared to 37 mm and 45 mm guns of the Ausf.C's opposition. Like in the same tree with the Panzer 38(t), it offers similar armour and speed, too.

However, with HEAT ammunition and a skilled player, the Ausf.C can be a great tank. HEAT ammo is difficult to aim due to its very low muzzle velocity which suits it for close combat, but its superb penetration, unmatched by anything in its rank, renders any enemy armour protection useless. Coupled with fast reload times, the Ausf.C can be a surprisingly effective frontline brawler, crippling or destroying enemy tanks regardless of their armour protection. In this role, it's essential to dispatch the enemy before they can fire – the flat armour cannot protect the Panzer IV against anything at point-blank range.

If preferring a safer playstyle, it can lob HEAT shells from afar – this is difficult task to do, but as HEAT ammo does not lose penetration over distance, the Panzer IV C can destroy targets afar as well as up close and the armour may bounce a hit or two from longer distances, it can even cause a good number of tank to hull break, some good examples would be the BT tanks and LVTs. Engaging moving targets is however very challenging.

Despite its low penetration, it's actually not that bad. The statistics may indicate low penetration but remember that the Panzer IV C is at a very low battle rating where it can penetrate actually pretty much any vehicle it faces with normal AP shells. Also, the 75 mm has a very fast rate of fire. The gun size is also fantastic and there are frequent knock-outs with one shot. Don't worry about T-50s, T-126s, and other thicker-armoured early French tanks, the gun can penetrate all of them with either round at its disposal.

Overall, the Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. C suffers from its roots as an infantry support tank and many players will avoid it, but if willing to take up the challenge, one could put the HEAT shells to good use and achieve great results. Further research then levels up to another part of the Pz.Kpfw.IV line – the Panzer IV Ausf. E, sporting additional armour and improved HEAT rounds with 100 mm of penetration.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Destructive firepower against common opponents like the BT-7, M3 Stuarts, etc.
  • Main armament offers various shells for all enemy types: a deadly AP for common targets, a penetrating HEAT for heavy vehicles (eg. B1) in an uptier, HE for light vehicles and smoke shell to "blind" the enemies.
  • Rapid reload of 3-4 seconds means it's easy to deal with multiple targets.
  • Great gun depression of -10° provides nice mountain warfare capacity.
  • Adequate speed and cross-country mobility
  • Spacious fighting compartment with 5 crew increases survivability, especially when most guns at the battle rating have small calibre and lack damage.
  • HEAT can hull break some lightly armoured tanks like the LVT(A)

Cons:

  • Thin armour overall plus its large profile, easily gets spotted and penetrated
  • Gun has low muzzle velocity and huge drop, which makes distant or moving targets fairly hard to shoot at.
  • Turret turns rather slow at around 10°/s, making it hard to quickly respond to flankers like the BT-7.

History

Development

The Pz.Kpfw. IV's creation, like its predecessor the Pz.Kpfw. III, was devised by Heinz Guderian, where he envisioned a support tank to be used to handle anti-tank guns and fortifications. The Panzer IV was to work alongside the more numerable Panzer III in Panzer Divisions (three company of IIIs and one of IVs) to engage the enemy, giving the role of fighting enemy armoured forces to the Panzer IIIs. As a support tank, the tank was to have the short 75 mm howitzer as its main armament and have a weight limit of 24 tons. MAN, Krupp, and Rheinmetall-Borsig worked on the development of the tanks, but the Krupp's model was selected for further testing.

The chosen model from Krupp once finished used a leaf-spring double-bogie system for its suspension, doing away the proposed interleaved or torsion bar suspension system earlier devised for the sake of faster production. The vehicle held five crew members, the commander, gunner, loader, radio operator (and hull machine gunner), and driver. Though it looked symmetrical, the Panzer IV turret was actually offset to the left of the chassis centre line a bit while the engine was also offset to the right, this was to allow the torque shaft to turn the turret. The offset also meant that most of the ammo is held on the right side of the tank in storage areas. The Panzer IV was then accepted into service and production began in 1936.

Panzer IV Ausf. C

A Pz.IV C during training.

The initial Ausf. A variant of the Panzer IV had armour only about 14 mm, enough to stop small arms fire. It quickly moved on to the Ausf. B with a more powerful engine and transmission, and more armour to 30 mm thick. Then the Panzer IV Ausf. C, introduced in 1938, showed up with a better engine and slightly more armour on the turret to 30 mm. The Ausf. C ended with the Panzer IV with the KwK 37 L/24 75 mm howitzer gun that was capable of penetrating 43 mm of armour with armour-piercing rounds. The tank weighed 18 tons in this variant.

The early variant of the Panzer IV Ausf. C and Ausf. D (has 20 mm side armour) saw combat in Poland and France, where its light armour and gun had difficulty against the British Matilda and French Char B1 tanks. A 50 mm Pak 38 cannon was tested on the Ausf. D in response to the threat, but the swift victory of the French campaign ended these tests.

After the initial stages of World War II, the Panzer IV Ausf. C saw further upgrades to its later variants. Its next variant, made in October 1940, was the Panzer IV Ausf. E.


Archive of the in-game description

The Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf. C was the first Pz. IV variant to undergo relatively large-scale production. The tanks were produced from September 1938 to August 1939 in factories belonging to the company Krupp-Gruson. Beginning with the 40th tank to be produced, a Maybach HL 120TRM engine with 265 hp was used. This variant of tank had a specially reinforced stop under the gun barrel which reclined the radio antenna out of the way when the turret was rotated. The coaxial machine gun was fitted with an armoured casing. This variant included a new 6-speed gearbox. The vehicle's speed was increased to 40 km/h. Its forward armour was 16 mm thick. The tank commander received a new commander's cupola. Ausf. C tanks had a modified engine installation and an improved turret rotating ring. On Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. C vehicles, the radio operator did not have a directional machine gun but an observation slit and pistol porthole instead.

As a result of these improvements, the vehicle's reliability and ease of manufacturing were improved. 140 units were produced in all.

This variant of tank participated in every operation during the first part of World War II.

The Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. C's disadvantages became evident immediately after the attack on the USSR. The width of the tank tread did not provide adequate cross-country ability over soft terrain and snow-covered surfaces. The short-barreled 7,5 cm KwK 37 L/24 gun, with a muzzle velocity of 385 m/s for an armour-piercing projectile, was completely ineffective against heavily armoured tanks like the British Matilda and the Soviet KV and T-34.

The Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. C tank fought in combat operations until 1943.


Media

Skins
Sights

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

  • reference to the series of the vehicles;
  • links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.

External links


Germany medium tanks
Pz.III  Pz.III B · Pz.III E · Pz.III F · Pz.III J · Pz.III J1 · Pz.III J1 TD · Pz.III L · Pz.III M · Pz.III N
Pz.IV  Pz.IV C · Pz.IV E · Pz.IV F1 · Pz.IV F2 · Pz.IV G · Pz.IV H · Pz.IV J · Pz.Bef.Wg.IV J
Pz.V  VK 3002 (M) · Panther A · Panther D · Panther F · Panther G · Ersatz M10 · Panther II
M48 upgrades  M48A2 G A2 · M48 Super
Leopard 1  Leopard I · Leopard A1A1 · Leopard A1A1 (L/44) · Leopard 1A5 · C2A1 · Turm III
Leopard 2  PT-16/T14 mod. · Leopard 2K · Leopard 2AV
  Leopard 2A4 · Leopard 2 (PzBtl 123) · Leopard 2A4M · Leopard 2 PL · Leopard 2A5 · Leopard 2 PSO · Leopard 2A6 · Leopard 2A7V
Trophies  ▀M4 748 (a) · ▀T 34 747 (r)
Other  Nb.Fz. · KPz-70
USA  mKPz M47 G · M48A2 C
USSR  ◊T-72M1