Never build a tank before, I wanted to try it for quite a while now. Because of space limitations, I had to buy a small one although I would have preferred a larger scale. The Revell model had one advantage - it was cheap, but the kit itself was not very good. Again, the parts did not very well and on some parts, they even had the construction holes on the wrong side! So it's like most other recent Revell models: It looks good if you don't come too close.

The Panzerkampfwagen V "Panther" was Germanys answer to the Russian T-34 tank. At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of the Soviet Union - the standard battle tank of the German Army, the PzKpfw IV, seemed to be sufficient against any Russian tank.
The appearance of the T-34 showed the need for an improved Panzer. Daimler-Benz and MAN each started to develop a prototype for the PzKpfw V in April 1942 which were completed by September of the same year.

The MAN design was chosen and put into production in January 1943. It first saw combat at Kursk in July 1943. Over 5000 of this medium tanks were build until the end of the war. The Panther is said to be one of the best tanks of WWII, since it was a competitive mixture of armor, firepower and speed. According to the U.S. Army, five Sherman tanks were lost  to take one a single Panther.

After the war, the Panther was still used by the French Army until the 1950s, some units were used by the Russian Army, too.