Minsk - No Panthers

[bdtj1815]

The spring/summer of 1944 was a strange time for the panzer divisions. Many had one battalion of their Pz Regt's in Germany re-equipping with Panthers, a process that had been going on for almost a year. Divisions on key fronts, oarticularly the West were given priority before D-Day, some new Panther equipped battalions were even sent to the West, and one to Italy, whilst their parent division was in the East! AG Centre was seen as low priority, even on the Eastern Front, as the German's were convinced that the next Soviet offensive was going to be against AG North Ukraine who had priority. That is why the Panzer Divisions that arrive as reinforcements from AG North Ukraine have a Panther battalion.

I could give a more detailed breakdown of this re-equipping process and which battalion got Panthers and when and where they went but that is possibly outside the scope of this thread. As it is the game has it basically right.