Simplified Pz.IV

Simplified Pz.IV in kit by Gaso.line

Project "Wagen 1462" was Krupp's ultimate Pz. IV design bid for the Wehrmacht's tank commission ("Panzer Kommission"). The over 28 tonnes medium tank was to be powered by the 300 hp, gasoline, HL 120 TRM Maybach motor. The weight of the tank increased because of the thickening of the slopped armour. A new running-gear was engineered.
The crew of five would have been at best shielded by some 80 mm thick steel plates. A brand new simplified hexagonal turret with thicker and slopped armour would have housed one 75 mm KwK 40 L/48 cannon endowed with 87 shells. Two 7.92 mm Rheinmetall MG 34 machine-guns endowed with 3,150 rounds supplemented the weaponry of the tank.
Only blueprints of this strengthened Pz. IV have ever existed as the project has merely been cancelled in mid-1944. At that moment, the focus was to the mass production of existing materiel because of the increasing requirements of the total war.