Panther mit 8,8 cm L/71

Last updated on 04 May, 2025.

Panther 8,8 is a tier 8 German medium tank. It sports the most accurate gun in tier 8, however has low alpha damage with unimpressive DPM. Its armour is fairly weak but still decent, and it has good mobility.

Armour

(The Panther 8,8 in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

vs 184mm AP
Armour when facing head on:
Upper plate 170-185mm
Lower plate 160mm

Turret front 170mm
Turret cheeks 290mm+ auto-ricochet

When using -8 gun depression and not angled:
Upper plate 220-235mm
Turret face 183mm
Turret cheeks 410mm+ auto-ricochet

Armour vs tier 7 tanks:
Against tier 7 tanks, the Panther 8,8 has great hull armour. Lower penetration tanks such as mediums and lights will struggle to penetrate this even when its not angled.
If you angle the tank (which you should), you can bounce even more shots, including from higher penetration tanks (such as heavies with 170-190mm penetration).

Due to the lower plate and large profile though, don’t only rely on getting bounces, its best to avoid being hit in the first place.

Armour vs tier 8 tanks:
In tier 8 the Panther 8,8’s armour effectiveness is reduced to “decent”. On its upper plate, it can bounce some lower penetration tanks (ones with 170-190mm penetration) when its angled, but generally most other tanks will always be able to penetrate it.

If you hide the hull, the armour effectiveness is good, just due to the turret being very small. Enemies will often miss the weak turret face and instead hit the cheeks or mantlet, or just miss the turret entirely (but don’t sit still, as accurate enemies will still be able to just aim for your weak & flat turret front).

When using gun depression, this tank won’t bounce anything with more than 215mm of penetration; however, if it angles its hull like in the image above, it can even bounce most premium rounds off the hull.
Note that enemies can shoot the track wheel and lower plate in the above image, try to hide these if possible. If not possible, its still better to angle, as enemies will need to take that time to aim, rather than just going right through this tank’s enormous upper plate.

Armour vs tier 9 tanks:
Facing tier 9 enemies, its best to not rely on the hull at all. Though you can use gun depression with angling to make it strong, the large size and higher penetration of tier 9 tanks make it not worth the risk.

The turret is just as reliable as in tier 8, as the main thing which helps the turret work is the small size and auto-ricochet angles of the turret cheeks, which help encourage misses or bounces irrelevant of how much penetration the enemy has.

Gun

The Panther 8,8 mounts an 88mm gun.

Firepower:
-Ammo: AP/APCR/HE.
-Penetration: 203/237/44mm.
-Alpha damage: 220/190/270.
-Reload time is 5.5s for a total of 2360 DPM.

Handling:
-Aim time is 2.4s/2.7s
-Dispersion is 0.299/0.254
–Gun handling is 0.1/0.1/0.06, or 0.09/0.09/0.05 with Vertical Stabilizer.

Usability:
-Shell velocities are 1000/1250/1000 m/s.
-Gun depression is -8 degrees around the entire tank.

The Panther 8,8’s gun is the most accurate gun in tier 8, due to having the best combination of accuracy stats. Amazing gun handling when moving, very quick aim time, and amazing dispersion, its difficult to miss when using this gun.

However, other than accuracy, the gun is unimpressive. Its DPM is decent but not amazing, and the alpha damage of 220 is quite low for tier 8, making it hard to trade with enemies.
The penetration of the gun is also unimpressive. While the standard ammo with 203mm is quite good, its premium 237mm is among the lowest of tier 8 mediums.

Mobility

Raw stats:
-Forward speed is 55km/h.
-Reverse speed is -20km/h.
-Raw acceleration rate is 18.8hp/t.
-Engine power is 880hp for the 46 ton weight.

Hard terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 21 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 74.8 deg/s.

Medium terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 15.7 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 56.1 deg/s.

Terrain resistance stats:
–Terrain resistances are 0.9/1.2/1.5.

Overall the Panther 8,8 will feel very mobile for such a heavy and large medium when it’s on hard terrain.
However on medium terrain it’s mobility is just average and just what you would aspect of a 46 ton medium, with decent acceleration and traverse but a good top speed.

Equipment loadout

Gun Rammer:
Though the penetration of the Panther 8,8 is fairly low, it doesn’t mean you should use calibrated shells. Due to its low alpha damage, the Panther 8,8 really relies on its ability to out-reload its enemies, or at least to have a similar reload. On top of this, the amazing gun handling & accuracy mean that hitting weakpoints is easier than any other tier 8 tank.

Equip the tank with gun rammer, if you play the tank for a while and really feel that its penetration isn’t enough, then use calibrated shells. Only do this if you have already played the tank; there’s no reason to put your tank at a DPM disadvantage immediately before you even try it.

Gun rammer increases your DPM to 2412, and gives your tank a 5.6s reload with 220 alpha.

Improved Assembly/Enhanced Armour:
Both enhanced armour and improved assembly work very well on this tank. The Panther 8,8 can be both an armoured medium tank, or support medium tank.

Enhanced armour will add about 7mm effective thickness to both the upper plate and the turret face. This will make quite a big difference against lower penetration enemies (such as tier 7 tanks or tier 8 mediums) and when you use angling. However it has essentially no effect against most same and higher tier enemies.

By using improved assembly, your armour will be worse against lower penetration enemies, however you can still make good use of the turret armour as that does not change, still having its auto-ricochet cheeks and gun mantlet. Improved assembly takes this tank’s high base HP of 1450 up to a very healthy 1508 HP.

Vertical Stabilizer/Refined Gun:
As the Panther 8,8 has both the best combination of gun handling and accuracy of all tier 8 MT, improving either of these 2 aspects will work fine on this tank.
Using vertical stabilizer will give this tank an insanely good 0.9/0.9/0.05 dispersion on movement, use this for a more active frontline playstyle.
Using refined gun will give this tank an insanely good 0.269 dispersion, use this for a more laid back support playstyle.

Gameplay advice

Panther 8,8 can play either as a support tank or as just a regular medium tank.
It has a gun perfectly suited to supporting, but it also has decent armour and mobility, allowing it to play fairly aggressively and on the frontlines.

Note that just because this tank can play a support role, doesn’t always mean it should. The only situation where you should use the Panther 8,8 as a support tank, are these situations:
1: You are the only tank going on your flank. If there are no other tanks coming with you or supporting you, and you have to go to the other flank with your team, play as support to them.
2: Your enemy (the tanks most likely to go your flank and fight you, like mediums and lights) are stronger/have more support. For example if you are the only medium tank, but the enemy has 2 medium/slight tanks, you may need to fall back at some point to play as support so you don’t get rushed and die.
3: You see a fully open flank. If you notice all or most enemies on one side, there’s an opportunity for you to flank and put in side/rear shots into enemies. In this case you would go to that empty flank and use the gun to support allies.

Other than playing in the support role, the Panther 8,8 plays fairly similarly to a regular medium tank. It should start the battle by going to the frontline, brawl with its great DPM and HP, use hulldown positions and gun depression, and of course flank around the slower tanks.
Its basically just a less armoured version of the Panther I and Panther II, but keeps the same basic kind of playstyle (adjusting slightly for that armour). Don’t play quite as aggressively as the Panther II though, that tank is just far more capable of being overly aggressive since its armour is better and reload is faster.

Be aware of your large size and fairly low camo rating, as even though the tank has high HP, it can sometimes take shots unnecessarily form being spotted in bad positions.

vs 225mm AP

Angling the hull while using gun depression.

When you angle the tank like in the image above:
It significantly increases armour effectiveness against tier 8-9 tanks, but you have to make sure you both use the full -8 gun depression, and angle the hull.

The most notable increase of armour is the hull, which in the image above has between 265-295mm of effective armour on the upper plate, which will easily bounce any tier 8 standard ammo, and even cause some tier 9 standard ammo to struggle.

Also note the side armour, the upper side armour is an auto-ricochet, but only 183mm thick (so HEAT ammo can go through easily), and the lower sides are 165mm thick.

Overall

-Soon-

Is it worth getting?

Panther 8,8 is not worth it. Its a decent tank and it can perform well occasionally (as can all tanks), but it gets out-performed by almost any tank with higher alpha damage than 220/225.

Consider buying the Panther 8,8 if you have spare gold and it really looks like the kind of tank you would enjoy. It has a really unique (but not necessarily interesting) style of gameplay at tier 8, and a very comfortable gun that’s just enjoyable to use; but the enormous size and awkward profile, combined with weak hull armour just make it hard to use and do well with.

The Panther 8,8 is worth 5,000 gold. Its a decent tank, but its essentially just a lighter armoured and less mobile version of the Panther II, with a slightly more accurate gun.
Its quite pointless from a gameplay perspective, as the Panther II is basically just the same tank but better in most regards.

Most recently sold for:

5,000 gold (Tank only) – Jan 2022
£/$9.99 (Full bundle) – March 2022
5,000 gold (Tank only) – November 2022

Camo cost:

Panther 8,8 has no legendary or rare camouflages.

Historical info:

Panther 8,8 is a real tank, but it was never built.

This tank is not to be confused with the Panther II. It is a Panther I ausf. F, with a Krupp design schmalturm turret, specifically built to be able to mount an 8,8cm gun.

The real life Panther II was just a new hull with a Panther I ausf. G/J turret and a 7,5cm gun. This Panther I with 8,8cm was the only non-tank destroyer version of a Panther designed to mount an 8,8cm gun.

You can find more information about the tank from the Wargaming wiki, or here.

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