Due to the surprise in having to confront the excellent Russian T-34, the German Army urgently requested a new tank that could face it. General Guderian summoned an urgent Study for the development of a tank that would return battlefield supremacy to the Germans, and even considered copying the T-34 directly. Nevertheless, this option did not end up being pursued, not only for national pride, but because the advanced German industry found many difficulties in copying the aluminium V-12 engine that was mounted in the T-34. On November 25, 1941, Hitler ordered the Wa Pruf (*) to begin development of the new vehicle. At the end of 1941, the Ministry of German Armament invited Daimler-Benz, MAN, Krupp, and Skoda to develop the project. The specifications were: a weight among 30-35 tons, inclined armour-plating of 40-60 mm, an L/48 gun of 75mm, (later on this was changed to a gun of 70 calibre, although Hitler wanted one of 100 calibre's. Rheinmetall-Borsig took charge of turret design. Daimler-Benz designed the new tank being inspired a lot by the previous VK3001 prototype that was the direct copy of the T-34. They thought about two types of different suspension systems, a more economical one that consisted of two bogies with leaf springs, very similar to that of the Czech T-38, but was finally rejected because it was not sufficiently strong enough for the armour increases that was foreseen. The second suspension was chosen and mounted on the Panthers that we know, and was a collaboration between MAN and Daimler-Benz, the two companies that would manufacture the new tank.
