Pz.IV E

This page is about the German medium tank Pz.IV E. For other versions, see Pz.IV (Family).

Pz.IV E

Pz.II F

Pz.IV F1

Pz.IV E

Pz.II F

Pz.IV F1

Germany

I Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
2.3	2.0	2.0

Class:

Medium tank

Research:5 900

Purchase:6 300

Description

The Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausführung E (Panzer IV E) (Sd.Kfz. Index: Sd.Kfz. 161) is the fifth variant of the Panzerkampfwagen IV medium tank family. Following the victory in Poland, the German Army ordered additional Panzer IV vehicles. This resulted in the Panzer IV E, which was essentially a slightly modified Panzer IV D variant. The structural framework of the Panzer IV E was identical to that of the earlier Panzer IV D. One of the few alterations was the addition of a new driver's visor. Another change was the replacement of the hatch door hinge design, which improved protection. The Panzer IV E's turret design was mostly unchanged from the preceding Panzer IV D variant. The commander's cupola was modified and reinforced. It had five vision ports, each of which was shielded by two sliding armoured coverings. In addition, the command cupola bulge that protruded from the rear armour plate was removed from the rear half of the turret. A fume ventilator and a modification of the signal port's protective cap shape were also added. From March 1941, all Panzer IV E vehicles would be equipped with a storage bin on the rear of the turret. By the end of the production phase in April 1941, approximately 200 complete tanks had been constructed.

Introduced in Update 1.45 "Steel Generals", the Panzer IV E was a continuation of the Panzer IV medium tank family. While the Panzer IV E is capable of fighting more advanced adversaries thanks to increased protection and new HEAT ammunition, it is still largely similar to the previous Panzer IV C, and thus has similar gameplay.

General info

Survivability and armour

Smoke grenades

Creation of a smoke screen in front of the vehicle

Armourfront / side / back

Hull30 / 20 / 20

Turret30 / 20 / 20

Crew5 people

Visibility99 %

In the game, compared to the previous modification Pz.IV C, the E modification is mostly an armour upgrade: the front lower plate is now 50 mm thick, side and rear armour have been increased by 5 mm. Plus, the front and side armour have additional armour plates installed on them. The commander's cupola got thicker as well.

Armour type:

• Rolled homogeneous armour
• Cast homogeneous armour (Cupola)

Armour	Front	Sides	Rear	Roof
Hull	30 + 30 mm (11°) Front plate 20 mm (72°) Front glacis 50 mm (14°) Bottom glacis	20 + 20 mm	20 mm	10 mm
Turret	30 mm Turret front 35 mm Gun mantlet	20 mm	20 mm	10 mm
Armour	Sides	Roof
Cupola	30 mm	10 mm

Notes:

• Suspension wheels are 15 mm thick while tracks are 20 mm thick.
• Upper front armour (30 mm) is enhanced by added 30 mm plate, making it 60 mm thick total, with small areas with only 30 mm.
• Side armour is also enhanced by added armour plates as well, 40 mm thick total.
• Belly armour is 10 mm thick.
• Hull underside right above tracks is only 10 mm thick.

Mobility

Speedforward / back

AB48 / 9 km/h

RB and SB43 / 8 km/h

Number of gears6 forward

1 back

Weight21.0 t

Engine power

AB572 hp

RB and SB300 hp

Power-to-weight ratio

AB27.2 hp/t

RB and SB14.3 hp/t

The mobility got improved as well: the top speed has been raised from 35 km/h to 43 km/h. Reverse speed has been slightly raised too (from about 6 to 8 km/h).

Game Mode	Max Speed (km/h)		Weight (tons)	Engine power (horsepower)		Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
	Forward	Reverse		Stock	Upgraded	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade	48	9	21	465	572	22.14	27.24
Realistic	43	8		265	300	12.62	14.29

Modifications and economy

Repair costBasic → Reference

AB300 → 408

RB318 → 433

SB386 → 526

Total cost of modifications5 970

4 510

Talisman cost410

Crew training1 800

Experts6 300

Aces75

Research Aces135 000

Reward for battleAB / RB / SB

20 / 30 / 30 %

106 / 106 / 106 %

Modifications

Mobility	Protection	Firepower
Tracks Research: 300 Cost: 230 70 Ostketten Research: 300 Cost: 230 70 Suspension Research: 270 Cost: 200 60 Brake System Research: 270 Cost: 200 60 Filters Research: 300 Cost: 230 70 Transmission Research: 480 Cost: 360 110 Engine Research: 480 Cost: 360 110	Improved Parts Research: 300 Cost: 230 70 Improved FPE Research: 270 Cost: 200 60 Crew Replenishment Research: 300 Cost: 230 70	Horizontal Drive Research: 300 Cost: 230 70 75mm_kwk_37_40_HEAT_ammo_pack Research: 270 Cost: 200 60 Adjustment of Fire Research: 270 Cost: 200 60 75mm_ger_kwk37_Hl_C_HEAT_ammo_pack Research: 300 Cost: 230 70 Elevation Mechanism Research: 300 Cost: 230 70 Smoke grenade Research: 300 Cost: 230 70 Artillery Support Research: 480 Cost: 360 110 75mm_ger_Smoke_ammo_pack Research: 480 Cost: 360 110

Armaments

Main armament

75 mm KwK37 cannon

Ammunition80 rounds

Reloadbasic crew → aces

4.3 → 3.3 s

Vertical guidance-10° / 20°

The gun remains the same as the Pz.IV C, a short 7.5 cm KwK 37 L/24 cannon. Notably, a new improved Hl.Gr.38C HEAT shell is available, with higher armour penetration than Hl.Gr 38B.

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
Hl.Gr 38C	HEAT	115	115	115	115	115	115

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°
Hl.Gr 38C	HEAT	450	4.8	0.05	0.1	875.5	62°	69°	73°

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	75 (+5)	69 (+11)	60 (+20)	51 (+29)	43 (+37)	35 (+45)	26 (+54)	4 (+76)	1 (+79)	No

Ammo racks of the Pz.IV E

Notes:

• Racks disappear after you've fired all shells in the rack.
• To go into battle with flank racks depleted, pack 26 (+54) shells (racks 1 to 7 emptied).

Machine guns

7.92 mm MG34 machine gun (coaxial)

Ammunition2 700 rounds

Belt capacity150 rounds

Reloadbasic crew → aces

10.4 → 8.0 s

Fire rate900 shots/min

7.92 mm MG34
Mount	Capacity (Belt)	Fire rate	Vertical	Horizontal
Coaxial	2,700 (150)	900	N/A	N/A

Usage in battles

The gun is very powerful with a great rate of fire, and with HEAT shells can one-shot most of its opponents. While being able to penetrate most of your opponent's frontal armour, you are a lot more effective when the enemy doesn't see you as your armour is not the greatest. The Pz.IV E is often capable of annihilating an enemy vehicle with a single AP shell, regardless of the angle of the enemy's armour. It has a fair amount of armour as well, however due to the lack of an actual slope it may seem considerably more fragile than some Soviet vehicles when facing AP shells.

Against most threats, it is often wiser to close in with the enemy vehicle, to make targeting the weakest areas possible, increasing the chance of successful penetration. When engaging vehicles at close range it is, for example, a good idea to count 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. However, take note that your standard AP round can still penetrate most tanks you face at the battle rating but take HEAT rounds for the more heavily armoured tanks (such as the Valentine and Matilda II). An advisable approach to play the Pz.IV E is to attack the enemy's flanks and avoid direct encounters with enemy vehicles.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Main armament is destructive, offering various shells for all enemy types: a deadly AP for common targets (e.g. BT-7, M3 Stuarts, etc), two high-penetration HEAT variants for heavy vehicles (e.g. B1) in an uptier, HE for light vehicles (e.g. GAZ trucks) 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 around the battle rating have small calibre and lack damage (e.g. M3 Stuart's 37 mm)
• With the 30 mm add-on armour on the frontal hull, at a distance it is immune to some common opponents' gun like the BT-5/7, M3A3, M5A1, etc
• HEAT can hull break some lightly armoured tanks like the LVT(A)(1)

Cons:

• Thin armour overall plus its large profile, easily gets spotted and penetrated; its turret armour remains unchanged from previous models which is prone to getting penetrated, endangering the gunner
• 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. E

After the Battle of Poland and France, the deficiencies of the Panzer IV Ausf. C saw it being upgraded on October 1940 to the Panzer IV Ausf. E. Still retaining the KwK 37 L/24 75 mm howitzer gun, but with an upgrade to 50 mm thick, with the original 20 mm glacis plus a 30 mm steel plate bolted onto the glacis as improvised protection. The commander cupola was moved slightly forward to accommodate the new storage bin on the back of the turrets from that model on.

Despite that, the Ausf. E was soon taken over by a new variant in production in April 1941, the Panzer IV Ausf. F. Though, the Ausf. E saw service alongside it in Operation Barbarossa, but was soon found to be terribly outgunned by the appearance of the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks. It was replaced from front-line service with the Ausf. F variant.

Archive of the in-game description

A modification of the Pz.Kpfw IV medium tank that took into account all the flaws that had previously come to light. The armour plating was enhanced, the front of the body was now covered by additional 30 mm plates, and the sides — by 20 mm plates. The tank now weighed 21 tons. A new model of tracks was also used that had a width of 400 mm rather than the old 360 mm tracks. The tanks of this series were released between September, 1940 and April, 1941. 223 tanks were produced.

Media

Skins

• Skins and camouflages for the Pz.IV E from live.warthunder.com.

Sights

• RideR2's Realistic gunsight (TZF4a, TZF 5a/b/d/e/f/f2, TZF 9b/b1/c/d, TZF 12/a) for Pzkpfw II, Pzkpfw III, Pzkpfw IV, Pzkpfw V, Pzkpfw VI

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

Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:

• topic on the official game forum;
• other literature.