Today we went to the Panzer Museum in Munster, Germany. It was huge and filled with German Tanks from World War II. There were about 100 tanks from Germany, United States, Great Britian, and the Red Army. The Museum is trying to restore them to working order so they can do demonstrations and re-enactments. They had the German Panzer IV which is one of their medium tanks. There were a little under 9,000 built and where run by a 5 man crew. It has a V12 Maybach engine with only 296 hp. It fired a 7.5 cm exploding shell through a rotating turret. The Tiger II was their heavy tank. It had a 12 Maybach as well with 690 hp. It also had a 5 man crew but an 8.8 cm "Porsche" turret. It was interesting to see the tanks and when they let us go inside one of them it was really unbelievable the they were able to fit 5 men in them. They told us that the tanks had such heavy armor that they could take a direct hit from an American tank from the front and keep on going. The only way to destroy the tank was to shoot it from behind or throw a grenade inside. These tanks contributed a lot to todays battle tanks because the design is the same and they just added modern technology and the best of todays weapons.
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