Which tank of WW2 was the best overall and why was it the Sherman?

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Churchill

>>2459546

>>>/k/

And this thread will not end well, and that's speaking from the perspective of someone who agrees with you.

Panther, Sherman Firefly, and the Model 1942 T-34.

All brilliant tanks.

>being this retarded
the russians had the best tanks by the end of the war

Everything german made was better. End of story

>>2459813
>Panther
I heard you like final drive breakdowns
>Firefly
I heard you like missing

>>2459546

A single Tiger used to go against 40 or 50 Shermans and destroy them all.

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How about I be contrarian all the way and say "Char B1"?

>>2460049
it was legitimately the best at its role, at its time

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> the best overall
So price/performance ratio? T-35-85 then.

>>2460065
Which is why I know that I'm not only being a full-fledged idiot by bringing this within the thread, and trying to have some people be more knowledgeable about it. Probably the best tank in 1939.

But yes, the Germans drew a lot of inspiration from the B1 when France surrendered, and particularly from its chassis and its caterpillars.

>>2459546
The Pershing was great, too bad it didn't get used. But Jumbo Sherman was all you needed on a battlefield.

T-34>Sherman>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>German Garbage

>>2460041
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY&t=28m53s
28m53s

>>2460049

The Char was great at what it did, but its tactical role was one that didn't come up all that often, and it had operational mobility problems besides due to a defect in the fuel tanks.

If I'm in a Pz 2 or 3 I'm going to be wetting myself if I bump into one, but that's not really what tanks are great for, and I wouldn't necessarily be any worse off than if I just ran into an anti-tank gun hidden somewhere.

It was good at the wrong sort of job, is what I'm getting at.

>>2460222
but the french had another great tank for doing that role
The B1 was for fucking up panzers, and great at it
The french army had other tanks for other roles

>>2460266
>useless hull gun AIMED WITH THE HULL
yeah nah m8

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I usually can't stand cheap slav crap but I can't help but love the T34-85. It's such a great tank, cheap as hell, has a big gun, is durable and you can spam it out the factory lines like nothing else

Other than that, I'd go with Sherman easy eight or Panther. It's such a shame that most of the panthers turned out to be crap and broke down easily because Germany couldn't afford to make them with proper resources at the end of the war. It's not really a design fault, like most of the Sherman fanboys here claim

>>2459835
excuse me i like having welding that doesn't have gaps massive enough to shove my fingers through

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>>2460065
> it was legitimately the best at its role, at its time
>>2460222
> The Char was great at what it did

Obsolete WWI design
16 years in development
Underpowered engine
17 mph max road speed
47mm gun only penetrates 25mm of armor
Hull mounted 75mm gun has no traverse
Driver forced to act as gunner
Using a fragile and finicky pneumatically controlled trans
All-steel tracks are noisy, ride poorly and rip up roads
Unprotected side mounted radiator
Commander’s coupla doesn’t even open
ONE MAN TURRET

The only thing the Char B1 had going for it was it’s armor but even if the French had gotten their shit together in time, it wouldn’t have been of much use.

>>2460997
It wasn't the best due to its cost and various problems, but

>Obsolete WW1 design
It was probably the most powerful heavy tank in the world in 1940, hardly obsolete
>16 years in development
No relevance to actual combat performance
>Underpowered engine
It had 9.7 horsepower per ton, the same as the SOMUA S35, and which was one of the highest among most French tanks, and only 2 less than the Panzer III/IV
>17 MPH max road speed
Its a heavy tank, of course it isn't the fastest
>47mm gun only penetrates 25mm of armor
That's wrong, the 47mm SA 35 had 35mm / 30 degrees at 400 meters as one demonstration. You might be thinking of the SA 34 which did have penetration levels around that level.
>Hull mounted 75mm gun has no traverse
Which is why the French gave it transmission which was extremely precise.
>Driver forced to act as gunner
French tanks did tend to have too few crew, that part I can't disagree with.
>Using a fragile and finicky pneumatically controlled trans
This wasn't as much of a problem in how the French planned to use the tanks since they would be used for brief offensives to break a line and then pause, bite and hold. Plenty of time to do repair on it.
All-steel tracks are noisy, ride poorly and rip up roads.
I haven't heard of this before, where is the source?
>Unprotected side mounted radiator
The radiator and cooling system was protected by two shutters of 23/28mm / 45 degrees of which two would have to be penetrate by a shell, it wasn't a weakness and its something of a mystery why the ones at Stonne? were lost.
>Commander's cupola doesn't even open.
The French opted for increased protection
>One man turret
A legitimate problem

There were failings but given how the French intended to use them they wouldn't have been as bad as it turned out, the mobile warfare of 1940 was about the worst possible environment for the B1s. It wasn't just the armor for strength.

Many of the problems that did exist would have been fixed with the B1 ter too.

>>2460082
But the M4 cost the same per unit and was better.

>>2459779
This

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>>2461121
> It was probably the most powerful heavy tank in the world in 1940, hardly obsolete
The original specifications were drawn up after WWI and by the time it actually went into production in 1936, technology has long surpassed it.

> No relevance to actual combat performance
See above. The French had 16 years (from the 1st prototypes) to fuck around with it and still produce an shitty obsolete tank.

> It had 9.7 horsepower per ton, the same as the SOMUA S35, and which was one of the highest among most French tanks, and only 2 less than the Panzer III/IV
They had more than enough room for a far more powerful V12 engine.

> Its a heavy tank, of course it isn't the fastest
Indeed, it was28 tonnes but could barely get out of it’s own way, while an early war U.S. M3 Lee was 27 tonnes and could run circles around it.

> That's wrong, the 47mm SA 35 had 35mm / 30 degrees at 400 meters as one demonstration. You might be thinking of the SA 34 which did have penetration levels around that level.
Granted. Nonetheless, the odds of the commander spotting an enemy tank, stopping his tank, traversing the turret around, loading the gun and actually hitting the enemy tank were pretty slim.

>>2461305
> Which is why the French gave it transmission which was extremely precise.
You mean unnecessarily complicated and extremely unreliable, right?

> This wasn't as much of a problem in how the French planned to use the tanks since they would be used for brief offensives to break a line and then pause, bite and hold. Plenty of time to do repair on it.
This absolutely was a huge problem and should have been abandoned in the testing phase.

> I haven't heard of this before, where is the source?
All the various all-steel track designs by different powers all sucked, which is why nobody uses them anymore but the Char B1s track was particularly heavy.

> The radiator and cooling system was protected by two shutters of 23/28mm / 45 degrees of which two would have to be penetrate by a shell, it wasn't a weakness and its something of a mystery why the ones at Stonne? were lost.
Of course it was a critical weakness and a retarded design element.

> The French opted for increased protection
It provided less protection then the commander being inside the turret looking out thru periscopes and prevented the commander from seeing WTF was going on around him.

> There were failings but given how the French intended to use them they wouldn't have been as bad as it turned out, the mobile warfare of 1940 was about the worst possible environment for the B1s. It wasn't just the armor for strength.
And that’s why it sucked; the French had almost 20 years to develop it and still produced a shit design.

> Many of the problems that did exist would have been fixed with the B1 ter too.
No it wouldn’t, as the fundamental design was still the same and still woefully obsolete.

>>2459813
>Sherman Firefly
Uncomfortable slow moving crewmen.

>>2461305
t. lindy beige

>>2461374
>t. lindy beige

Am I supposed to know what they means?

>>2459546

Its the go-to tank for randomly catching on fire!

>>2461530
>only the Sherman had internal ammo explosion problems.

This is your brain on Belton Cooper.

>>2461530
t. meme pro

>>2461485
lurk more

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The Bob Semple tank of course.

Didn't it take several Shermans to take out one Panzer?

>>2460112
so he's saying that everything was reported as a tiger, despite not being a tiger?

so that means, that shitty shermans were BTFO by fucking panzers? fucking lol

>>2462018
Yes, this whole thread is a meme intended to bait Wehrboos and Slavboos both of which had the superior tanks during the war.

>>2462041
That isn't how the -aboo suffix works.

If Battle of the Bulge hadn't happened and all those German tanks that ran out of fuel instead remained in reserve and waited to counter-attack a push, would they have BTFO the American tanks?

As I understand it, IRL most of the tanks ran out of fuel.

>>2459813
The only tank more maitanance prone than the Panther is the T-34, so its neither of those

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>>2462146

Probably not, given their earlier performances.


Don't forget, even if the BoB never happens, Germany's fuel situation is still desperate, and if they're being held for a counterattack, there's all the issues of things like the support infrastructure (or the tanks themselves) being destroyed from the air, or running into anti-tank guns or TD detachments, or any of the other things besides tanks you can use to kill oncoming tanks.

Most people forget, but the biggest cause of Sherman destruction wasn't German tanks, it was towed anti-tank guns and anti-tank mines.

>>2461530
That would be the Panther.

>>2462230

The panther usually wouldn't randomly catch fire, it was more prone to random transmission breakage and it sitting there in the mud uselessly.

>>2462026
>BTFO by fucking panzers?
A tiger was a panzer vi, i assume you mean panzers i-iv when you say "panzers". To this I would say there was nothing at all remarkable about any of those 4 designs and german technical advantage is a myth.

They had a superior officer corps and technical fighting doctrine in the early war. That's it.

>>2462170
>The only tank more maitanance prone than the Panther is the T-34
When you look at soviet statisticians records that show that the average tank lasted days before being knocked out it makes sense to build a shoddy engine. Furthermore it worked so who are we to argue that the design was inadequate?

>>2462253
>The panther usually wouldn't randomly catch fire
Spontaneously exploding was actually one of the reasons the entire line had to be recalled.

>>2462049
>Slavaboo

Sounds weird, Slavboo sounds natural.

>>2462018
Yes and no. Shermans always engaged in groups of five. That was the minimal unit. You attack an MG nest, you use 5 tanks. You go after a Hetzer, 5 Shermans it is. You go after a Tiger, 5 tanks.

>>2462313
I believe it was a problem in the fuel system. The interior would fill with vapors that would spontaneously ignite and burn the crew, however I can't say if anyone ever died as a consequence. This isn't to say the panther didn't have other teething problems.

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*blocks your path*

>>2462490
Wtf is that?

>>2462535
I'm guessing a Sentinel from the filename. Not the guy who posted it though.

>>2459835
This.
>Do not get involved in a fight with a “Stalin” without overwhelming numerical superiority in the field. I believe that for every “Stalin” we must account for an entire platoon of Tigers. Any attempts by a single “Tiger” to fight a “Stalin” one-on-one can only result in the loss of a priceless war machine.
t. Heinz Guderian

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>>2459835
>the russians had the best tanks by the end of the war

Ивaн, please.

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>>2462626
*teleports behind you*

>>2462637
> promptly breaks down

>>2462637
*breaks down*

>>2462302
The t34 had a high failure rate, just because the Russians had an economy to support making a trillion t34s doesn't mean the t34 is a good tank.

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>>2462302
>When you look at soviet statisticians records that show that the average tank lasted days before being knocked out it makes sense to build a shoddy engine.

The Soviets weren't making shitty engines, transmissions, etc. on purpose, that's the best they could do.

Stalin's purges didn't just affect the military, everybody throughout Soviet society who was deemed a threat (or simply accused by someone for whatever reason) was sent to the gulag or just shot in the head and this meant huge numbers of the most talented and best qualified people all the way up and down the social hierarchy in the U.S.S.R.

And that was after the huge "brain drain" of the Russian Revolution, where thousands (who weren't killed outright by Lenin) fled overseas, taking their skills with them.

Russia is _still_ feeling the effects of Communism to this day.

>>2462664
>The t34 had a high failure rate
Because a tanks life span on the eastern front wasn't long anyways. Why make an engine that will last years when your tank is likely to get knocked out within hours of entering a combat zone?

>>2462707
Literally none of that matters. The soviets got a huge amount of trucks from the US, and a sizeable number of tanks from both them and the British Empire. Reusing the engines or better yet copying them and sticking them in t-34's was perfectly within their capabilities yet they felt no need to.

Because what they had was adequate for a tank with a limited lifespan.

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>>2462801
> Because what they had was adequate for a tank with a limited lifespan.

Again; Soviet tanks (and everything else) weren’t shitty because they were _purposely_ designed and/or manufactured to be shitty, that was simply the state of Soviet industry.

Even before the pressures of war, Soviet tanks were terribly unreliable:

“During the Soviet invasion of Poland in Sept. 1937, the Red Army deployed 1,675 T-26 tanks in what was essentially an uncontested road march into eastern Poland. Of these, 302 tanks, or roughly 1/5 of the force, broke down for mechanical reasons; in contrast there were only 15 combat casualties.”

“Armored Champion” - Zaloga - 2015

>>2462490
Best tank-fu. Great gun, nice and t h i c c front plate, and the meme bow MG.

>>2462646
What, an IS3 or a Panther?

>>2462844
>Again
Understand that what you are claiming is entirely uncontested because it has nothing to do with anything I was discussing. I am responding to you, plainly, that even giving you the benefit of the doubt that the soviet union as a nation was patently incapable of designing a better engine (it was capable) it would not matter.

The US and British Empire are giving them thousands of engines anyway. If it was somehow found necessary to give the T-34 a better engine they could have done so however what it had was found to be adequate.

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*blocks der Path*

>>2462026
afv losses were more or less even on the western front

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>>2462912
>The US and British Empire are giving them thousands of engines anyway.

Neither the U.S. nor the UK provided the Soviets with tank engines, the Soviet V-2 diesel was an unlicensed copy of a Hispano-Suiza engine and built wholly in the U.S.S.R.

>>2462967
>tank engines

Stop looking for an argument anon. They provided the soviets with working tanks and thousands of trucks, both vehicles have engines.

And even assuming only the trucks were ever delivered taking 2 or more truck engines and linking them is a perfectly practical way of making a "tank engine".

>the only problem with the panther is that it had enough armor that they would last long enough for transmission problems to occur

>>2462978
>and it would sometimes get filled with petrol vapors and explode itself

>>2462981
>the only problem is the engine would last long enough to build up vapors without breaking down first

>>2462975
That's basically the T-60/70/80's engine

>>2462990
I regards to the panthers' spontaneous combustion I believe the fault lay with the tubing and gas tanks themselves not the engines pump system. Could be wrong though.

>>2463021
I watch college and convention lectures on youtube.

I haven't read the thread but I imagine we are at the point where people are taking photographs of muzzle velocity charts from antiquated history books by now.

>>2463021
Joke's on you, I watch the History Channel

>>2463041
post them

>>2463021
>tfw bf1942 is 15 years old

>>2463069
only to have someone post another book page that has slightly different numbers, no way I am getting into that

>>2459546
inb4 slav(e)aboos arrive to call everyone wehraboos

>>2463072
battle of britain was best map

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>>2461121
You do realize your best tank, never fired a shot at the enemy. Was used for propaganda films because the french were to scared to put them at the front. All 7 were destroyed or captured 2 by their own crews. Yea amazing tank man, 37mm pak could go straight through the side with ease at rage. Was a french piece of shit like every bit of equipment they made after 1918

>>2463021
I was there you condescending retard

>>2463940
Char 2C huh?

>>2462975
>taking 2 or more truck engines and linking them is a perfectly practical way of making a "tank engine".

Oh sorry, I wasn't aware that you had no fucking idea what you're talking about.

Carry on.

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> Half a dozen anti-tank guns fire shells at him [a T-34], which sound like a drumroll. But he drives staunchly through our line like an impregnable prehistoric monster... It is remarkable that lieutenant Steup's tank made hits on a T-34, once at about 20 meters and four times at 50 meters, with Panzergranate 40 (caliber 5 cm), without any noticeable effect.

>>2461305
>Technology/obsolence
But it wasn't obsolete and it hadn't been long surpassed. In combat capacity on a 1930s battlefield it was probably the most "powerful" (I hate that word but it does work for this situation) vehicle in the world. For the role the French intended to use it it was perfectly capable.

>Engine
Could/might are wonderful words, by the standards of the 1930s and the heavy tanks of the era the B1 was entirely reasonable in its mobility. Also of course it was slower than a medium tank from several years later...

>Gun
Pierre Billotte sure seemed to do all right at Stonne then...

>Transmission
By the standards of the day the most precise in the world, there were disadvantages but you can't simply ignore the advantages.

>Reliability
Again, having to do things like greasing up the track links every day was fine in the concept of bite-and-hold attacks.

>Steel track
You aren't actually showing any sources, just telling me they all sucked. Books, articles, wikipedia links?

>Radiator
So after telling you the actual statistics of the tank's armor and that it was in fact, not a weakness, you simply continue to say it was a critical weakness?

>Cupola
The French had a different view on it, it was the wrong view, but they had a reason for it.

>lol it sucked
It got forced into a role that was completely different than that intended, naturally it underperformed. In its intended role, assault into static enemy lines, it was excellent.

>B1 ter
Let's see of the issues you complained about, you have complained about mobility, reliability, transmission, and the turret. The B1 ter replaced the nader transmission with a simpler system, had a more powerful engine, and a two-man turret. Sure sounds like an improvement to me.

>>2463940
t. lindybeige
of course a tank 20 years old was out of date, why are you not complaining about Mark IVs not being effective in 1940?

>>2462844
And what were the mechanical breakdowns for other nation's tanks? Simply saying 1/5 of the Soviet tanks broke down tells us nothing without knowing what the equivalent rates for other nations were. This isn't even mentioning things like maintenance standards, since a good maintenance organization can probably keep even an unreliable tank reasonably combat effective while a bad one will struggle with a reliable vehicle.

>>2463021

what if you play a lot of Red Orchestra 2?

>>2463021
you forgot about gup

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>>2465027
> But it wasn't obsolete and it hadn't been long surpassed.

The entire French armored philosophy and tank program ignored the fact that the very same technology they were developing to overcome a WWI style battlefield, made WWI style battles impossible.

>>2465778
With better command, France could have very well repelled the German invasion and launch an allied counteroffensive with the materiel on hand at the start of the war.

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>>2465064
>And what were the mechanical breakdowns for other nation's tanks?

You're not going to get a doctoral thesis on a Tibetan finger-painting board, you're going to have to do your own leg work but British tanks were notorious for their shitty reliability, while American tanks were renown for the ability to just keep going and going.

>>2465809
A lot of that probably has to do with safe American industrial centers, and having to ship M4s, meaning they built the best tank that could fit for shipping, rather than constantly facing material shortages or trying to overload the drivetrain by putting it in a bigger tank.

It's not that the M4 was a great tank par excellence. It's more that the Americans kind of just gave up on making bigger and better and basically didn't even participate in the heavy tanks arms race so they never really pushed the limits of the M4. Even the firefly was a UK modification of the M4, not an American design.

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>>2465837

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>>2465837
>Even the firefly was a UK modification of the M4, not an American design.

Except for the gun and radio, it was wholly American.

>>2465872
>american 1944 tech

>>2465905
The point is the Americans didn't really push the limits of the M4.

>>2465872
Is the closest they really got, and it's kind of pathetic desu.

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>>2465794
>With better command

1939 was too late.

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*blocks desert pass*

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>>2465924
> The point is the Americans didn't really push the limits of the M4.

WTF are you talking about? The U.S. continually modified and improved its tanks throughout the war, that M4A3E2 Jumbo of 1944 was a direct descendant of the M2 medium from 1939

> Is the closest they really got, and it's kind of pathetic desu.

Massive armor (more than a Tiger) and utter reliability is “pathetic”?

>>2465778
Technically a WW2 battlefield where situations like the B1 was useful was reasonably feasible If the German fast motorized offensive had been stopped in 1940. That isn't impossible, the French high command being able to pour piss out of a boot without written instructions might have led to troops sufficient for defending the Ardennes, or the German central point of attack being identified and countered, or a different plan such as the Escaut instead of the Dyle plan adopted with a more capable central reserve. At that point the front would have stabilized and with both sides with growingly large amounts of troops being pushed in, it would have been much akin to WW1. The force/space ratio would be so high that a truly mobile battlefield wouldn't be possible. In a situation like that a the B1, with a gun suitable for infantry support and thick armor would be quite useful.

This being said, its pretty clear that the B1 design was flawed, and it wasn't capable of the mobile warfare that ultimately decided the French fate. Just having SOMUA S35s and gaining more DLMs instead of the relatively bad DCRs would have been much more useful in the 1940 situation.

>>2465809
You can't simply use hard statistics for the Soviet tanks without know what it was for other nations, because 1/5 of tank losses to break down could be for all we know anything from catastrophic to reasonable for a 1939 campaign.

>>2465962
>You can't simply use hard statistics for the Soviet tanks without know what it was for other nations

Again; I'm not going to spend hours typing out thousands of words for you, go to the library.

>>2465960
The M2 wasn't an M4, M8. The E2 was made in extremely limited numbers towards the end of the war, and it was overloading the suspension and drive train, like all these other tanks. It wasn't even upgunned, just uparmored in the front to lead a column of M4s. Yes, the one time the Americans pushed the limits in their WWII tank designs, it was an extremely limited production run of an experimental design that was a stop-gap measure.

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>>2465962
>Technically a WW2 battlefield where situations like the B1 was useful was reasonably feasible If the German fast motorized offensive had been stopped in 1940.

Which would have required a completely different French mentality and would have to be implemented long before 1940.

>>2464768
He's right though, unless you want to argue semantics

>>2466022
If you replaced French command with people who were competent, the French could have stopped the German invasion with their materiel.

If you replaced French tanks with contemporary designs from any other country but kept French command in place, they would have lost even worse.

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>>2466017

250 M4A3E2 Jumbo Shermans were built specifically for attacking bunkers and dug-in strong points, not battling other tanks, though numbers of them were later up-gunned to a 76mm just for that purpose.

But the point is, the Sherman was perfectly capable of being up-graded as required, as it was fundamentally an excellent design across the board and in fact, the best tank of WWII.

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>>2466058
>He's right though, unless you want to argue semantics

No he's not, you can't just toss any old truck engine in a tank and say "good to go!"

>>2466068
M8, you lack reading comprehension. The fact that the M4 could be upgraded was brought up in an earlier example, the Firefly. The point is that the Americans didn't feel the need to do much major upgrading, and only did so in very limited capacity. You're arguing against a strawman of your own making.

>All these faggots arguing reliability
You people realise that there will never be a final answer right?
You could make an argument that American tanks were reliable but then you have to take into account the fact that Americans brought lots of spares, so if you have many break down it's alright because you can repair them overnight and if you take reliability as how many tanks are ready to go in the morning then yes American tanks are reliable
You could make an argument that Soviet tanks were reliable but you ave to remember that every factory made slightly differant tanks so it's idiotic to lump them all together
You could make an argument that German tanks were reliable but German tanks had a habit of being a bit shitty initially but eventually having their kink worked out so again it's pointless to lump them all together
etc etc
The answer won't be found on 4chan

>>2466094
Wait he said 2 or more engines, which he's right on

>>2466022
I just told you three ways in which the French could have stopped the German offensive, one of which only requires a localized change (posting an additional division at Sedan), one of which only requires a different deployment of reserves, and the third was a plan which the french debated heavily and planned to use a lot. It doesn't require a completely different French army to survive 1940.

>>2466008
You're the one who brought up the point about Soviet tanks with hard numbers, if you intend to use hard numbers for the Soviets you have to be prepared to have some hard numbers for the other nations, or your arguments are meaningless.

>>2466125
>You could make an argument that Soviet tanks were reliable
No you can't. You could argue that Soviet tanks were knocked out before reliability issues started to appear.

>>2466140
Well then fine yeh, whatever it still illustrates my point

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>>2466110
> cites examples of the Americans upgrading tanks from 1939 onward
> The point is that the Americans didn't feel the need to do much major upgrading

>>2466191
Maybe he meant upgrading as in replacing the tanks?

>>2462921
*den Path

>>2466191
Off of the M4 design you retard. That was what was initially said. Obviously they needed to upgrade the M2 and M3, which were always considered shit subpar tanks. The Americans barely developed past the M4 during WWII.

>>2462253
Hasn't the whole road wheels freezing together thing been debunked?

>>2466136
> Wait he said 2 or more engines, which he's right on

No, he’s not. You can’t just use any engine and trying to nigger-rig multiple engines is even harder and anyways, the Soviets were not using whatever engines in their tanks and the U.S. and UK did not supply them with tank engines.

The Soviets couldn’t even get their existing tank engines to run reliably, attempting to half-ass some other (equally unreliable Soviet) engine is even more wasteful.

>>2466224
Ok so 2 trucks engines is ridiculous but what about 2 bus engines?

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>>2466232
>Ok so 2 trucks engines is ridiculous but what about 2 bus engines?

The U.S. could do it, the Soviets could not.

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>>2459546
The m/42 not a single one was lost during the entire war

>>2466252
>Moving the goalposts

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>>2466216
> Obviously they needed to upgrade the M2 and M3, which were always considered shit subpar tanks.

Except they weren’t shit, the M3 Grant/Lee and M3 Stuarts turned the tide in N.Africa.

“As tank historian David Fletcher has noted, British tank units in the desert “considered themselves lucky not to lose six Crusaders each day to mechanical problems while the Stuarts just trundled on and on.”

>>2466296
The Stuart was a glorified undergunned armored car. The Grant/Lee was a shit design and it's only redeeming feature was the fact that it had a 75mm gun because the Brits demanded a tank that could mount a 75mm gun and they got the piece of shit that would become known as the Grant/Lee.

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>>2466264

Not at all, the Soviets couldn’t manufacturer reliable engines from the design they’d been already using for years and now you expect them to develop a completely new engine?

“The overall durability of the V-2 diesel engine fell from a pre-war standard of 300 hours to only about 100 hours in 1942, and often even worse. There were reports that V-2 diesel engines operating in the dusty air of Southern Russia needed repair after only 10-15 hours of operation and failed after 30-50 hours.”

And the anon up-thread was claiming that the Soviets were simply stripping out random truck engines and dropping them in T-34s, which is completely retarded.

>>2459546
This thread and in fact this argument is fucking retarded
Unless you specify what makes a tank "best overall" you will never get an answer
You're all fucking retards for replying to this thread

>>2466389
Meh, I was just arguing that you could make a tank engine out of 2 or more truck/bus engines
Yeh you might be right about reliability idklmao

>>2459889
then why did they lose faggot?

>>2466445
they were out produced and the allies loved their war crime air raids on german civilians

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>>2466358
>The Stuart was a glorified undergunned armored car.

Stuarts were on par with British Crusaders, German Panzer IIIs and Italian M13/40s and was far more reliable then all of them.

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>>2466486
>cries about allied war crimes
>'''''''''forgets''''''''' that germany didnt exactly play clean
no gives two fucks about war crimes wheraboo, grow up

>>2459546
tiger

>>2465872
Am i the only one who thinks the Sherman looks ugly as fuck?

>>2466713
That's a jumbo Sherman which is the Shermans older, fatter, uglier brother but yeh I agree

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>>2466139
>French could have stopped the German offensive, one of which only requires a localized change (posting an additional division at Sedan)

You are so fucking stupid how could the french of done that when they didn't even know where the Germans were going to cross the Meuse river.

Stop trying so hard to be a revisionist.

>>2466904
>You are so fucking stupid how could the french of done
>You are so fucking stupid
>of done
hmmm
really makes u think

>>2466909
Its ok to be upset that your argument just died

>>2466923
>my argument
try again

>>2463196
no it fuckin aint

>>2466358
German higher ups considerd the M3 superior to anything they had at the time. Just because the M3 is shit on WOT doesn't mean it sucked in real life, fucking armchair tank commander

>>2467250
well what would you say then? El Alamein was fun but fuck I hate getting left behind on foot

>>2466256
My dad drove a tank that never lost one during Vietnam too. Probably for the same reason, not one faced real battle.

>>2459546
Eisenhower hated the Sherman, it was designed specifically to fit through train tunnels in America for shipping. You'd have to surround a Tiger with them and hope you had tanks left over after scoring a lucky hit.

>>2467998
I think the 76mm could perforate the front of a Tiger I if I remember correctly

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>>2466713
>Am i the only one who thinks the Sherman looks ugly as fuck?

The Sherman has an admittedly archaic looking hull that should have been corrected with the simple use of a transfer case on the radial engine, lowering the drive shaft along the floor and allowing the hull deck to be lower.

If Shermans looked like M10s, everybody would be saying it was the coolest tank ever.

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>>2468028
>I think the 76mm could perforate the front of a Tiger I if I remember correctly

Inside of 500 yards.

All things considered, this has been one of the most civil "muh best tank"-treads i've seen. My world view might be slightly tainted by /k/ though

>>2462026
>by fucking panzers

Assault guns, actually.

https://youtu.be/Nem_Zc51ksg?t=21m5s

21 minutes in, the host, after struggling to fit his legs in the drivers seat, tries to leave it. It is difficult.

Just how short were russians in that period? I imagine they must've lacked a couple of inches of average height or something to design such a tight tank.

Can I say Panther, but only the 55% of them that didn't break and fall apart before entering battle, just from moving there?
Because those were some solid about 120 tanks. Real good, these.

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>>2469659
Russians nowadays have no problems operating T-34s either.

>>2459546
That's an impossible question, nations had different tanks to suit different operational needs. Comparing tanks which had different requirements when being designed will lead nowhere.

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>>2459546
Sorry bud but your pea shooter isn't really even a tank. It's more of an APC.

>>2472166
Ok, seriously kill yourself Wehrb.

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>>2459546
Because the Sherman was cost-effective, its uniform design meant adaptability and readily available replacement parts. On "paper" it doesn't look as impressive as, say, a Tiger II, with its massive armament and thick armor, but on actual paper the Sherman is king from a logistics standpoint because of how quickly the Americans could churn them out of their production yards and how many applications they had besides "shooting other heavy tanks"

It and the T-34 basically wrote the book on truly effective tank design, as Germany's tank design principle was "whatever gets Adolf's penis hard." Both being medium tanks they were plenty large enough to bully around smaller vehicles and light tanks, but also maneuverable and zippy enough to drive around the heavy tank and shoot the vehicle bringing it fuel and let the Air Force deal with it later when it's stuck on the side of the road without fuel.

>>2472231
>because of how quickly the Americans could churn them out of their production yards
>Germany's tank design principle was "whatever gets Adolf's penis hard."
Based Military History Visualized explains it quite well why the Germans had a quantitative disadvantage
Basically they adopted serial production way too late into the war, as can be seen by the tank production amount and unit cost by year
Which also explains why the Panther was most likely the most effective tank they came up with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tygk9-aneC4

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>>2472392
>Which also explains why the Panther was most likely the most effective tank they came up with

The Panther was the most cost effective _German_ tank (disregarding reliability issues) and most cost effective German tank _at that point_ in the war.

But the Panther was essentially a limited scope tank-destroyer, specifically built for shooting the bazillions of cheep shit Soviet tanks that were zerg rushing the Reich by then.

The most effective overall tank of WWII, is still the Sherman.

>>2465924
>kind of pathetic
>better armor than a Panther on everything except the rear
>can still mount a 76mm with no problems
>more reliable than a Panther
>completely outclasses a Tiger and fully invulnerable frontally to a Tiger save the MG turret

It had thicker side armor than most tanks had frontal armor. And it wasn't that much slower than a regular Sherman.
Honestly pretty amazing that it worked so well.

I always imagine the Battle of Kursk being a comedy show with 90% of the tanks of both sides breaking down even before the battle zone.

>>2473420
>The most effective overall tank of WWII, is still the Sherman.
That's a funny way of spelling T-34

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>>2476873
>T-34

That's a funny way of spelling "broken down by the side of the road".

>>2477290
You mean changing the tide of the war?

>>2473484
>ameriboos

>>2477290
>exploded diagram
>includes exploded gunner with shots of exploded intestines

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>>2477393
>You mean changing the tide of the war?

No, that would be spelled "Lend-Lease".

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>>2477510

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Not a tank, but I really like the Hellcat.

>One of the fastest vehicles of the war.
>Powerful main gun.
>Turreted, not fixed.

>>2468080
If only. I could kitbash something similar for one of the many sci-fi ww2 wargames out currently but there's probably no real reason to not use one of the later mark Shermans

>>2477585
Saw one racing around a field some years ago. Still amazes me the turret is open.

>>2477585
>tracks
>armored
>turret
>main gun

How is it not a tank, exactly?

>>2478866
OPEN TOP

>>2459546

Yeah, it was the best tank and coul- *breaks down*

>>2477585
The overall design of it and the M10 are great. Why didn't the americans just close the turret and add some armor on it instead of making the sherman?

>>2466904
Because the French did an exercise in 1936 where they simulated the Germans attacking at Ardennes and it was a disaster.
Maybe the French command actually reads it and decides to post an additional division there just in case.
Literally all it takes to buy France enough time to survive.

>>2478905
Because the Sherman design was a few years old, and well tested.
The Hellcat was just being designed and produced as the war started, they weren't sure its good.

Remember how the Germans pushed Panther before years of testing, and half of them broke down on the way to the battle?

>>2464768
Someone already mentioned the t-60/70/80 series. The T-70 for example used two linked automobile engines as the powerplant.

You also completely ignored the tanks the soviets got. Tanks that worked. Tanks with, get this, engines inside them.

>>2466224
>You can’t just use any engine
You literally cab use any engine

>and trying to nigger-rig multiple engines is even harder
They did it though.


>and anyways, the Soviets were not using whatever engines in their tanks
Because they didn't need to.

> and the U.S. and UK did not supply them with tank engines.
They suppplied them with working tanks so ipso facto they did in fact supply the soviets with tank engines.

>>2478941
I clearly said the m10 too. Don't reply to my post if you're not going to take its entirety into consideration.

The Shermans and the T-34 broke down as well and also had mechanical problems, as did most things in ww2 since everything was rushed since there was a total war.

The issue is that there were so many T-34s and Shermans produced that the mechanical failures could be overlooked and the tank simply replaced, while the German tanks had no such advantage so theirs breaking down was a pain in the ass.

Just read into the T-34 in 1941 and 1942, hundreds of them came out of the factories as utter shit, but it did not matter, as thousands more were coming every month.

>>2478964
>replies to hellcat post
>says "The overall design of it and the M10 are great."
>it and the m10
>as a reply to the hellcat

You asked a stupid question and I answered, not you are pretending it wasn't a stupid question.

>>2478967
Oh? How is it stupid? Because I didn't know something? Isn't that the very reason you ask questions anon or are you in the habit of asking questions you already know the answer to?

You still didn't answer anything regarding the M10 which was introduced earlier.

>>2478967
You realize the hellcat is the M18 and the M10 is the Wloverine, right?

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Who /OCD Thunder/ here?

>>2472166
>travel 100 meters
>break down


BEST TANK

>>2472166
Only good thing about it is the gun and the aesthetics

Otherwise it was a piece of shit that broke down all the time

I'm a pleb tankwise, any books to recommend?

>>2465809
wheres the kettle?

>>2479744
Armored Thunderbolt by Zaloga is pretty good.

But honestly, you should probably look more into general books about WW2 land warfare, this, that, or the other campaign. Tanks are weapon systems, designed to be used in conjunction with other weapons systems, and tallying up a series of engineering factors to mathematically determine the "Best tank" is a dumb idea almost invariably yielding results that are out of whack with actual combat performance, which depends as much on things like training and doctrine and oh yeah, what the fuck the other 95+% of the army and supporting air assets are doing.

Overlooking that is why this and pretty much every other "Top tank" thread on 4chan is stupid.

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my grandfather drove one of the first deployed batches of these babies during the battle of El Alamein, though I guess they don't technically count as 'tanks'.

>>2479922
Nothing wrong with self-propelled artillery, anon.

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>>2479931
sure, i'm pretty certain i read somewhere the m7 was basically a derivative of the sherman. the british equivalent was a nightmare to drive, apparently.

>>2479952
That was pretty common for self-propelled artillery in general. You've already got a chassis and an engine that you know works, so why not tear off the turret and put an artillery gun on top instead of designing something from scratch.

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>>2479888
>you should probably look more into general books about WW2 land warfare
Like what? I tried to read one on the battle of the bulge but you needed a phd in military lingo and the order of battle during the battle of the bulge to follow any part of that beyond the first two pages.

>>2479999
The BT-42 was pretty cool, I'm sad it sucked in combat
>British 4.5 inch howitzer on BT-7 chassis
>33hp/ton
>*muffled eurobeat playing in the distance*

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>>2478905
>The overall design of it and the M10 are great.

The M18 was what Tank Destroyer Command had wanted from the start and it was a good weapon but the eariler M10 was a compromise tank destroyer based on the Sherman chassis because that’s what was available.

While the M10 was still a pretty good weapon, it had numerous issues; a glacially slow manual turret traverse for a start and because of the unpowered turret, it had to mount 2,500lb cast iron weights on the back to balance it.

Due to wartime production quotas, the M10 didn’t use the R-975 radial engine of the Sherman and instead was designed to use the GM 6046 engine, (two straight-6 diesels) which while powerful and utterly reliable, weighed in at 4700lbs as opposed to the radial engine’s 700lbs. This additional weight only slowed down the M10 to the point it was no faster then a M4 Sherman, despite having much thinner armor.

And as U.S. tank destroyer theory stated they were strictly for anti-tank use, neither a co-axial machine nor a hull machine gun were installed, (same with the M18) which along with the open-topped turret, made the M10 susceptible to enemy infantry attacks.

Still, the M10 shot up plenty of German tanks but it would have been better to have just built more Shermans.