At the origin no mass production of this tank had been envisaged. Indeed few contractors had great experience of the production of standard vehicles. The two giant companies of automobile manufacture Ford and Opel had been put out of the production of tank, because of their American membership. This is why only Daimler-Benz at the beginning was charged to produce Panzer III (since 1937).

Panzers III passing a Russian tank in flames during Barbarossa in 1941. If at that time Panzer III forms the framework of Panzerdivisionen, the Russian medium tanks (Kv-I and T-34/76) will take the top quickly, returning it in second line.

src: La Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Ed. Ch. Colomb)

It should be understood, that the first models (A-E) were only models of preproduction produced in low number (see table) and that the mass production began truly only with the model F at the end of 1939. Indeed at that time it was already obvious that Panzers I and II were completely obsolete and insufficient to face the French and English tanks. This is why the production of Panzer III was doped by putting new firms on the work: Henschel, MAN, Alkett FAMO... then Wegmann, MNH, MIAG because of the urgency of a valid tank.

Panzer III (long gun of 50mm) out of combat in Russia. The gun of 50 though more and more powerful during the production was insufficient vis-a-vis the 75mm, 76mm, 76.2mm or other 77mm of Allies.

src: La Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Ed. Ch. Colomb)

However, the gun of 37mm quickly proved to be insufficient and will be replaced by the gun of 50mm. In spite of this gun, Panzer III could not never claim to the title of king of the battle fields, exceeded irremediably by the majority of the allied designs. The production will know its maximum in 1941-1942 with approximately 4000 produced specimens but its replacement gradually by Panzer IV rang the knell of the production of Panzer III towards the mid 1943 with a total of 5728 specimens.