Panzer IV turret armour

[cbo]

In another thread, lmp wrote:

Originally Posted by Imp

Cbo
Slightly off topic but as you seem to know quite a bit why did the PzMkIV recieve minimal improvements to its turret armour. Was this due to the fact that the long barrel 75 was a tight squeeze meaning the glacis could not be improved, in other words the turret was at its design limits or maximum weight for traverse possibly?

Late war it was not a great tank to have on the defence either dug in or on a hill due to the comparativly weak turret.

AFAIK it was a matter of balance in the turret. Because the commander was placed behind the gun, the gun had to be mounted as far forward as possible. This unbalanced the turret to the point where it was impossible to increase the thicknes of the turret front armour and stil have a working turret.
There was a proposal for a new turret in 1944, which moved the commander behind the gunner, allowing the gun to be moved back and the turret front armour to be increased to 80mm IIRC.

The turret never materialized, probably because the Germans were intent on ending Panzer IV tank production in the summer of 1944. Same thing killed off a number of other proposals for improving the Panzer IV.
Instead, money was put on the Panzer III/IV hybrid, which never materialized either.

cbo