At the same time they were to develop a turret capable of holding the new gun. Work on the new gun for the Panther began on 18 July 1941 when Rheinmetall-Borsig was given a contract to develop a gun capable of penetrating 140mm of armour at 1,000 meters. On 25 November 1941 Daimler-Benz and MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg) were both awarded contracts to produce a design for the new Panzer V Panther. The commission identified three key features of the T-34 – the overhanging long gun, the well sloped armour and the large road wheels – and decided that Germany needed to develop a tank with these features. He suggested simply putting the T-34 into production, but the Soviet tank used alloys that were in short supply in Germany, and was powered by a diesel engine that would have been difficult to replicate. On 18-21 November 1943 the commission visited General Guderian’s section of the front, where they examined captured T-34s and met with Guderian. The Germans responding by appointing a Panzer Commission, soon known as the Panther Commission, to investigate the situation on the Eastern Front and come up with an answer.
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