>Its the best tank of WWII!!!11! >Transmission breaks 500m

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>>32346141

>>32346141
Corners were cut just to get them out the door, that kind of thing is necessary when your manufacturing base is ground down to nothing. They only had three gears available installed too.

>>32347581
>available *to be* installed

>>32346141
They were good in combat, but getting the battlefield?
That's another story.

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Meanwhile T-34 unbeatable quality coming through.

>>32346141
Its what happens when most of your heavy machining equipment is under constant threat of bombing

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>>32347874

>>32347874

Most early model T-34's were subject to lax quality control simply because when you pick up all your factors, jam them in train cars, dump them in the middle of nowhere in the Urals and tell Ivan to build you a tank, you might discover corners are cut.


>>32347862


Even in combat, they weren't that good. There were some significant ergonomic issues- the gunnery sight was superb for laying rounds but a lack of other sights and complex functions meant that the gunner often spent an inordinate amount of time searching for the target, loading rounds was a huge pain considering their size versus the space the loader had to work with, etc- and combat wear is far more intensive than simply driving down the road. American M4's didn't struggle too significantly with Panthers, while in some of the more pivotal battles like Ardennes, about half the Panthers the Germans were fielding were lost mechanical failures.


>>32347581

That's what it comes back to. Germans had no skill at large scale casting, and had to make due with what they had available in terms of engines and internal parts, which meant that the geometry of most of their tanks was quite bad. This was the same reason why the Panzer 4 stayed in service far longer than it should have been; the Germans had nothing that would work acceptably in the small designs of well-sloped tanks until the Panther showed up, which carried it's own problems, and while weighing as much as allied heavy tanks wasn't actually any better than the M4 sherman or the T-34 at protecting it's crews from the flanks.

>>32346141
I guess we can all agree then...

The Bob Semple was best

>>32346355
Sherman had the best KDR and lowest crew loss of any tank in the war.

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>>32347862
>They were good in combat

Except when they were not good in combat, especially against inferior American Shermans, Panthers were BTFO in France in summer 1944 and also in the Ardennes.

The Panther had a good gun, and nothing else. Pretty thank tho.

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>>32350087
>Sherman had the best KDR

What kind of trolling is this?

>>32350183
it had good frontal armor and was fast cross country

>>32350242

Till it had to cross a river the hard way, or broke down.


>>32350183

The Panther had a gun intended for a tank destroyer. While this wasn't the end of the world, the tank did sorely lack for a proper HE round.


>>32350196

Germans recorded losses and kills differently than everyone else. Where the Allies typically recorded all tanks not immediately available as a loss- this is how the Third army at one point had 700% loss figures on Shermans- the Germans could be hesitant to report a tank lost that was abandoned and now behind enemy lines. They were similarly eager to report tanks they forced the enemy to abandon as kills even though it'd be patched up and back in the field in a week.


Plus SS reports were outright fabrications. Even German intelligence cut their reports by as much as half.


In reality, the M4 Sherman was the best performing tank in the war. Safest too.

>>32347874
>M-muh quality
>NOT BUTIFEL
Enjoy your 1.5 Maus and Soviet flag waving over the Reichstag, faggot wehraboo.

>>32351958
Is that the same math used to calculate the 6 millions jews?

>>32352302
Are you an idiot?
Oh wait. /pol/. Self explanatory.
If it isn't bait.
I don't even care anymore.

>>32351958
Yes, and it's the same thing with fighter pilots amirite? Germans reported even a hit as a kill, while brave US pilots shot down roughly 100 planes per pilot per day, but because they were so modest and had strict rules barely nothing was reported.

>>32352457
>Yes, and it's the same thing with fighter pilots amirite? Germans reported even a hit as a kill, while brave US pilots shot down roughly 100 planes per pilot per day, but because they were so modest and had strict rules barely nothing was reported.
Both sides over-reported kills in the air. Notably during the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe reported more RAF planes shot down than the RAF ever fucking had.

>>32352426
He's actually not wrong. The 6 million figure was more or less just subtracting the number of jews in Europe post-WW2 from the number pre-WW2. It doesn't take into account emigration, death by bombing/starvation etc. The 6 million figure also has a religious significant in the Jewish faith. The mistake often made is confusing a somewhat inflated figure with no figure at all.

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>>32350087
this
Soviet Sherman was the first allies tank rolling into Berlin

Friendly reminder that the USSR lost more T-34s than Germany had AFVs.

>>32346141
What the fuck is a Wehmaboo?

I don't think I've ever seen someone say the Panther was the best tank of WW2. Certainly a beautiful looking machine, but it's performance record was never the best. Then when you actually see the interior you realize how poorly laid out (At least the early ones) they were.

Technically for K:D ratio, one of the best armored vehicles of the war was the Ferdinand/Elefant. But to say that was the best vehicle would be laughable. Even if I personally like them.

By far the best tank of the war was the M4. The best balance of every element needed in a tank of the time.

>>32347874
It's not ike as if aesthetically pleasing engine covers were a high priority at the time.

>>32348462
>which meant that the geometry of most of their tanks was quite bad.
The geometry was bad because it was designed that way.
>small designs of well-sloped tanks
Sloping in the context of German tanks would had increased internal space.
>wasn't actually any better than the M4 sherman or the T-34 at protecting it's crews from the flanks.
It's not like as if 80% of hits are from the frontal arc, right? Or that thicker side armor would not had actually increased the protection offered.

>>32352581

Wehrmaboo. As in Wehrmacht + weeaboo. Also called Wehraboo/Wehrboo. Germanophile who obnoxiously worshipes anything German because it is German.

>>32352506
>>32352457
funnily enough I'm reading a book about the eighth, and holy fuck did both sides over report kills, claim 75 bombers, 6 lost 4 scrapped back in England only 2 still grounded after a week. gunners claim 102 fighters. german losses 15

>>32352426
Where are the names for all 6 million dead jews

>>32350087
It was also in barely any fighting against tanks for the entirety of the war, and at the Bulge when it faced heavy tank battalions suffered horrific losses.

The pro-Sherman argument basically is just picking your stats and claiming the Nazis forged all theirs. I think the best tank was probably either the T-34 or the Tiger I, which faced tons and tons of action over the war and proved themselves over and over again as excellent vehicles.

>>32352577
Friendly reminder USSR lost more people than Germany had soldiers.

This isn't a good metric. Fact is the T-34-85 was a great tank that suffered from things not attributable to design.

heres a pretty interesting vid of the swedes testing the panther.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmXEly5_u38

Its one of my favorite ww2 tanks. mostly because of its design choices represents the situation in germany at the time.
its also sexy as fuck

it had its obvious issues due to last minute redesigns due to material/compononent shortages, and shitty training at the time.
but it was cheap as fuck, had an awesome gun, and fit into the german doctrine perfectly.

http://warontherocks.com/2016/07/was-the-russian-military-a-steamroller-from-world-war-ii-to-today/

>>32346141
>on all levels except physical, I am a Panther tank
>[Breaks down]

>>32352725

Bomber gunners are famous for over-claiming. Fighter pilots had much more stringent rules for kill confirmation. USAAC fighters came standard with gun cams, in order to have a kill confirmed, you have to have footage showing the target on fire, having large pieces shot off, be uncontrollable, or have crashed into the ground.

That still leaves a lot of room for error, but video evidence is the most foolproof out of the kill claim methods. In the Marianas, the US navy claimed 700 planes, the Japanese records losing 550-650.

Having less than 50% over-claim in WW2 was considered exceptional. Luftwaffe frequently claimed more planes shot down than the total number of enemy planes in theater. A lot of their claims were on IL-2's, and IL-2's are tough fuckers that often made it home after being "killed".

>>32350183

>The ardennes

Weren't the ardennes the theater that caused Eisenhower to demand that all future Sherman deliveries were to be equipped with the new 76mm gun?

Also, Hunnicutt names it the best tank of the war, just ahead of the Pershing, guess his works do not take all your >breaks down every 10 seconds (((arguments)))

>>32352539
>>32352754
Holocaust denial is a crime, you realize that right?

>>32352627
What is the term for people who obnoxiously worshipes anything American because it is American?

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>>32356632

Perhaps in your country, Hans

>>32356665
burgerboos

>>32346141
It was a solid design, but a not so solid factory.

Same goes for russian tanks, except no russian factory was good.

>>32352586
any small panel gap could fuck the tank up easily.

>>32356632
Ya in a third world country.

>>32352457


No one is arguing that aircraft kills were not over reported. But, again, even German intelligence cut SS after action reports in half as a point of standardization, while German standards for what constituted a 'kill' on the ground and what was considered a 'loss' was miles apart from Allied methods.


A tank in the shop getting it's engine overhauled was considered a loss per American standards. A tank stuck in the mud was called a loss by the Soviets.


It does make sense for aircraft to over report success- there's a pretty big gap between what shoots down an aircraft and what forces the pilot to limp home and for someone who's traveling in the opposite direction that's a difference you're typically not going to know. Most aircraft don't just explode.


>>32352584


Heavy tank chassis are not a good candidate for tank destroyers. Maybe assault guns, but the 88's the Germans put on Elephants and Jadgtigers left a lot to be desired. The net result was a vehicle who worked against itself- tank destroyers need to be able to be light enough that they can rapidly disengage and withdraw from combat and have a low enough profile that they're easy to hide. The elephant had neither of these things.


Plus, kill figures were drastically over reported.


>>32352586

>Sloping in the context of German tanks would had increased internal space.


This isn't me arguing, this is actual German reports. They didn't slop the armor on the Panzer 4 because it would reduce internal space which they needed for things like radio and engines. Americans actually had the same problem when designing their heavy tanks which was why they were so willing to drop the M6 even after 100 or so had been built and the M26 was only just released for service.

>>32352586
Fuck character length.


>It's not like as if 80% of hits are from the frontal arc, right? Or that thicker side armor would not had actually increased the protection offered.


~14% of panthers lost at Kursk were attributed to infantry equipped with AT rifles. Not guns, rifles. Furthermore the turret mantlet had a severe issue with it being designed like a shot trap- rounds hitting the lower half had a good chance of getting deflected downward into the crew compartment, into ammo racks. Plus the lower glacis on the tank wasn't nearly thick enough to resist oncoming fire.


If they wanted the Panther to be resistant to AT fire it made no sense for it to weigh as much as it does while being about as good at protecting it's flanks as M4 shermans or T-34's. Or in more approachable terms, both the M26 and the IS2 were better in every conceivable way at protecting their crews than the Panther while weighing about as much and having superior guns.


>>32356492
They had no shortage of 75mm equipped Shermans, while 76mm Shermans had only been issued to special units.


It makes sense post-Bulge that they'd ask for more 76's.


>>32356665
Freeaboos or Burgers depending on whether or not you want to infer they're fat.

>>32346141
>>32347874
>>32347887
>>32350183
NEWSFLASH
Materiel produced in countries with industry that has been annihilated by years of total war (ie Germany, the SU, and Japan) will be of subpar quality even if the design is good.

What the Panther had

>Superb frontal armor only matched by heavy tanks and the Jumbo Shermans, still a life insurance for the crew up to the final days of the war
>A good 700hp engine that propelled it to quite the speeds despite the weight and governments later placed on it
>One of the best at guns of the war, only outmatched by the German's own, the Soviet D-25 and D-10 as well as the Allies' 17pdr and 90mm M3
>Great gunnery optics
>A GODLIKE suspension that shat all over most tanks, but particularly ones with narrow tracks like the Sherman
>A low price, almost as cheap as a Panzer IV

What the Panther lacked

>Side armor (To be expected from a medium of the period)
>A good HE shell which proved to be a hindrance at times, although the Coldstream Guards reported that the additional velocity of their "Cuckoo" was useful in urban engagements to pinpoint MG positions in a window or things like that
>An actually decent turret, it was a messy relic of old designs to the point the projected Schmalturm's specs were an improvement in every aspect, leading to
>A lower magnification for the gunner sights to help him aquire targets in the heat of battle without being directed by the commander
>A transmission worth a damn, although the problems tend to get exaggerated by memers on /k/ they existed and were so grave that going 1000km without a transmission change was enough reason to commend the driver, plans to use the decent King Tiger transmission were canned in order not to endanger production

Altogether it was a decent design with many excellent qualities and a lot of horrible flaws, overspecialized and utterly shit in certain conditions while shining in others

Now tear apart my shitpost faggots

>>32356879

>They had no shortage of 75mm equipped Shermans, while 76mm Shermans had only been issued to special units.

>It makes sense post-Bulge that they'd ask for more 76's.

Precisely, the reason for that is that the 75mm Shermans were incapable of engaging the primarily Panther-equipped units when they came from the front up to their defensive positions.

Guess what is capable of doing so? A 76mm.

Naturally the Panther is no match for the 75mm from the side, but even in the final hours Eisenhower was no fool and wanted to avoid these situations in the future.

>>32356896

You forgot the shot trap senpai. Bouncing enemy shells is no good if they go straight up the driver's grey matter.

Otherwise that list seems okay-ish

>>32356950
>>32356896
The interior of the Panther more broadly had some issues with ergonomics. The gunnery sight was superb, but a lack of other features, or general optics meant that while the gun could lay rounds with precision, what it couldn't do is acquire targets. Plus, maneuvering the long 75mm rounds into the loading mechanism was an enormous pain due to the cramped spaces of the tank.


The turret's mantlet was a shot trap, and even the revised design still had somewhat of a problem in that regard.


The lower glacis was a joke- rounds that bounced in front of the tank and deflected upward into the glacis could easy penetrate it.


It was more like 300 km without the final drive eating itself alive.


Ultimately the best application of the Panther tank wasn't actually the panther, but instead the jadgpanther. Simplified design reduced build time and cost, and generally meant that the chassis and gun were better suited to their intended role.


>A low price, almost as cheap as a Panzer IV


This is actually hard to know since by 1944 the Germans were making extensive use of slave labor and their currency may as well have been monopoly money.

BTW Sherman crew losses were not only overstated, they were numerically trivial!

Tanks, even if mobility killed, protect their crews enough that many escape to fight again. Of course tanks can often be returned to service if recovered.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=123000

The actual Army totals, from the Adjutant Generals Final Report are:

Total Battle Casualties - 936,259
Total Deaths - 234,874
Total KIA - 198,856 (includes KIA while captured and MIA declared dead)
DOW - 26,762
Died of other causes - 9,256 (while captured or missing)
Captured, returned to military control - 111,426
WIA, not died - 589,959

Of those Armored Force losses were:
Total Battle Casualties - 6827
Total Deaths - 1,581
Total KIA - 1,407
DOW - 167
Other deaths - 7
Captured, returned to military control - 414
WIA, not died - 4,832

Sherman was light, reliable, easy to produce, fit where larger vehicles could not go, and provided effective infantry support.

BTW if you look at most WWII tank welding it looks like ass compared to modern work. Primitive electrodes and inexperienced welders are the reasons why. Even US welds aren't the greatest.

>>32352302
go back to pol

>>32357061

That is what I meant with the Schmalturm being an overall improvement, it provided more space for the crew to work with while improving the armor scheme, eliminating the shot trap, improving the traverse motors and adding extra cranks so turning it without the engine running wasn't such a chore, rangefinders, more optics, was cheaper, lighter, retained the same turret ring dimensions, and also was to mount the long 8,8 the Tiger had (this is questionable since it would bring along the same problems the old turret had with the 75mm shells, but still).

That was not some wunderturret though, it's just that the original one was THAT shitty

>>32347874
Has anyone ever claimed the t-34 was a product of quality tho?

>>32356665
People with common sense

>>32357271
I can guarantee that if a magical fairy was to ever look down at WWII and magically swap T-34 and Sherman designs, we would see even more Sherman losses than we have T-34 ones now. Or less - seeing as Sherman was still significantly harder to produce, and Soviets would not be able to shit out so many.

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>>32356632
Not in Burgerland

>>32356885
>implying

You'll never see a Sherman with quality resembling the horridness of that shit, and America was in a total war economy thruoghout the war too

>>32352457
The issue with Luftwaffe kill counts are that they
1. Counted planes destroyed on the ground as combat kills
2. Counted kills by a squadron towards the squadron leader

The latter is due to how German squadrons operated. The wingmen were entirely to support and set up kills for the wing leader, they were to watch his tail and he was to shoot down enemies.
Great for keeping your Ace alive. Not so great for having new pilots survive long enough to become Aces. It's why the Germans had such lousy performance in the air as a whole but ended up with the highest scoring aces as a whole. While the US rotated Aces back to the mainland to train new pilots and adopted a much more defensive 4 man fighter wing thought up by the British, the Germans retained a very offensive formation throughout the war. And their pilots either flew until they died, were captured, injured too badly to ever fly again, or by some cosmic miracle, survive to the war's end.

>>32361635
I'm not sure what you're really basing that on, aside from the Sherman being more expensive to make resulting in less being produced of course.

Not to mention just flat swapping the two would be retarded. Of course an unmodified Sherman would perform worse than a T-34 if applied across the entire war. The T-34 was created with thought put into the Russian terrain while the Sherman was created expecting to see duty in far less Russian terrain. The T-34/76 had a stronger engine to weight ratio and thicker tracks to help it not get stuck so badly in snow and mud. It also had a slightly smaller profile and better side armor, but otherwise the Sherman outclasses it. Especially in regards to the base gun and frontal armor, aside from the weak point on the lower glacis of the M4A1.
The M4A3 had a much better armor setup than the T-34/85, although the 85mm was a better general purpose gun, although it didn't help the lacking crew comfort side of the T-34 much, even in the enlarged turret. Better HE, similar AT performance to the 76mm.

But at any rate, yes just dropping a Sherman into Russia and a T-34 into the US in a vacuum would lead to poorer results than we saw historically, but that's because you're dumb and assuming that designs exist in a vacuum.

A Sherman design given to the Soviets would have seen it going through several revisions to improve cross country performance and likely install a different, more powerful engine even at the expensive of reliability, while a T-34 dropped into the US would have seen a significant overhaul of the turret and the addition of several vision ports. Likely a redesign of the front hull entirely to give the driver more room and install a top hatch rather than a front hatch. And of course the US would have wanted the engine replaced with something much more suitable for maintenance, with high emphasis placed on parts commonality with other US vehicles, even at the expense of raw horsepower.

>>32352153
>spot the butthurt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union

>>32361713
> America was in a total war economy
Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffrt. How much work hours were in an American worker's day? In SU, it was up to 16 hours in the late of 1942. How many times USA had to mobilize children for full-time skill-dependent jobs on it's munitions factories? How many times US moved it's entire fucking industry by railways across half the country under bombing raids into ares severely lacking infrastructure? How many Americans actually starved to death in US due to food shortages coming from frontline hogging up all the food? For how long the US workers were payed with food rations and sleeping places in wooden barracks? How many facilities were nationalized entirely due to severe need in their product beyond the government's ability to pay for it? How many trucks were just straight out taken by the government without any compensation for the war effort? How much wood and ore was provided by labor camps for criminals? How much designs were created by engineers literally working in solitary cells at a gunpoint? How many people were shot or sent to mine ore due to their actions unintentionally hampering the war effort in any way?

You kids can't imagine even the concept of true total war economy. US had horseshit compared to how USSR and Germany were squeezing themselves dry for every last drop of production.

>>32361747
Interesting. Never knew that. They simply used different metrics.

>>32361747
You forgot the verification. For German pilots a witness account of a few other pilots (number varied through the war) was enough to constitute a kill. For Soviet fighters, a kill could only be acknowledged after wreckage analysis. All the missions beyond the frontline did not give them any kills by default.

>itt: muh american engineering the best quality in the world!
>soviets won though! that means t34 is the best tank!
>german tanks break down before being built!

These threads are by far the easiest to bait retards into territorial combat with other retards.

You're all retarded, none of you are historians. None of you were there, you can't attest to any of your claims. Majority of numbers were fabricated.

>>32347874
>Panthers still got rekt by this

>Wehmaboos will defend this

>>32356665
People with IQs over 80

>>32361837
Assmad Hitler fangirl detected

>>32361837
>You're all retarded, none of you are historians.
which is a boon for this. Lindy Beige actally is one and ALL, I actually mean ALL, starting with his ancient greek, roman, viking era and medieval era vids are garbage.

>>32361849
How do you figure that out of what I said?

Your brain is tainted.

>>32361853
Assmad Hitler fangirl still detected

>>32356632
Wait... where do you live that an unpopular opinion is actually illegal?

>>32361855
Pretty sad, tbqh senpai. Maybe one day you'll crawl out of your shell are realize the world isn't the hollywood movie you thought it was.

>>32361796
>The T-34/76 had a stronger engine to weight ratio and thicker tracks to help it not get stuck so badly in snow and mud.
All that can be summed up as "significantly higher mobility".

> that's because you're dumb and assuming that designs exist in a vacuum
>just flat swapping the two would be retarded
>Especially in regards to the base gun and frontal armor, aside from the weak point on the lower glacis of the M4A1. The M4A3 had a much better armor setup than the T-34/85, although the 85mm was a better general purpose gun
All true.

My position is - they were very much comparable machines, capable of fulfilling their roles very well, with small flaws and advantages over each other, T-34 maybe coming out on top just a bit due to streamlined production and greater rough terrain mobility opening entire new strategic possibilities, making tank advances possible over terrain that Germans deemed impassible.

I just felt like throwing a stone at /k/'s favorite "T-34 is zergshit made by drunk inbred schoolgirls, Sherman is super great and shat all over it" circlejerk, as locals rarely account for how strategic situation affected the performance of both of these tanks.

>>32361874
Austria or Germany probably. Holocaust denial isn't illegal in Switzerland.

>>32361850
>Lindy Beige actally is one
He's not. He's an archeologist - not historian - by education. And dance-instructor/youtube memeperson by trade.

>>32361888
>He's not. He's an archeologist - not historian - by education.

Same shit really, it should give him the tools to make factually correct statements as far as possible. Which he does not. A lil' bit of larping with your reenactment bros does not make you a competent fighter...

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>>32346141
back to >>>r/warthunder slavaboo

>>32357700
>>>/reddit/

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>>32361928
I has a question: Why are german tanks these monstrous blobs of steel. Why did they, it would seem to me, try to make the whole thing into one continous piece of steel as much as possible? Would you not want it to be as modular as possible for repairs and maintenance, like:

>make chassis from the best steel you can find and at a reasonable thickness
>make power plant quickly exachangeable so a defect tank can be towedto the shop, the plant extracted and another, working one, inserted; the tank rolls off while the mechancis now have time to fix the broken plant.
>all armour would come in pre manufactured units. You'd add the glacis piece to the chassis. If it was damage, you could easily exchange it.
>same for turret and side armour. amour should come in blocks that are added on depending on need

>>32357700
>>32361934
Go back to far away from here, both of you.

>>32361879
"significantly higher mobility"
Well, no. Over rough ground, yes, but that's still an improper summation of the differences between a Sherman engine and a T-34 engine.
Over even ground the Sherman keeps up pace just fine, and runs across gentle fields and lightly sloping hills just fine. It has no trouble getting up hills and non boggy terrain as well, it just does so more slowly than a T-34 would.

Not to mention the mobility changes with different models.
An M4A3 HVSS handles much better than a M4A1 ever did, and apparently better than a T-34 on most terrain according to some Russian tankers. Even on ice once they received some specialized tracks for crossing ice and snow.

But that's not to say either tank ever had a complete advantage over the other in any metric except armor thickness. Which is a pretty solid and unflinching thing. Even talking gun caliber it varies based on circumstances a lot of the time.

The 85 versus the 76 gives the 85 an advantage at short range and of course overmatching gives it a bigger advantage against armor less than 80mm thick, but the 76 is a smaller, faster round that retains penetration at longer ranges, but also ends up more likely to bounce due to the lower weight.

So many nuances and circumstance goes into tank designs at basically every level.
I dunno where I'm going with this, all I know is I'm going to bed.

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>>32352762
>It was also in barely any fighting against tanks for the entirety of the war

Not him but that's really only true of the American experience in NW Europe, and mostly because you had the only fully mechanized army on the planet pursuing a military dependent on horses and still employing carrier pigeons. 12th Armored made a combat advance of 60 miles through Southern Germany to Austria in less than 9 hours, no other tank or armored force could come close to that.

The British ended up having much more tank engagements for whatever reason, not to mention all the other theaters in which it served.

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>>32361960

The quality of German steel dropped significantly during the war as they were forced to make changes to their alloy compositions. Most famously resulting in brittle steel that shatters on impact (pic related). Decline in production techniques also introduced quench cracking, or unseen cracks inside the armor itself, and armor that isn't properly tempered (hardened).

There are even accounts of 75mm Shermans firing HE shells (for sighting) and not just cracking the armor of a Panther but blowing off entire plates.

>>32362145
that would ahve been avoided if armour cam in distinct, seperate add on units instead of being the shit that they made. I' puzzled why they did it like that. moving around these huge pieces is much labor intensive and requires cranes etc....

The German tank commander Otto Carius, who was credited with over 150 'kills' described an action in a 38(t) in July 8, 1941:

It happened like greased lightning. A hit against our tank, a metallic crack, the scream of a comrade, and that was all there was! A large piece of armour plating had been penetrated next to the radio operator's seat. No one had to tell us to get out. Not until I had run my hand across my face while crawling in the ditch next to the road did I discover that they had also got me. Our radio operator had lost his left arm. We cursed the brittle and inelastic Czech steel that gave the Russian 47mm anti-tank gun so little trouble. The pieces of our own armour plating and assembly bolts caused considerably more damage than the shrapnel of the round itself.[7]

In contrast, speaking about the armour on German tanks:

Again and again, we admired the quality of the steel on our tanks. It was hard without being brittle. Despite its hardness, it was also elastic. If an anti-tank round didn't hit the armour dead on, it slid off on its side and left behind a gouge as if you had run your finger over a soft piece of butter.[citation needed]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_38(t)

What about the Ferdinand/Elefant tanks? Heard the Ferdinand's tracks liked to fall apart due to the sheer weight

>>32351958
>the M4 Sherman was the best performing tank in the war. Safest too.
you should read some memoirs of sherman commanders.

The germans didn't call them tommy cookers for nothing.
The Sherman design was way behind all other medium tank designs when it first came out. Short barrel 75mm, 69mm front armor (before they were up-armored). laughable side and rear armor.

Can't really blame the US, as they weren't as experienced in tank design as the brits, germans and soviets. These things take time to master.

Shermans didn't stand a chance against 88s and long 75s. one frontal hit and they were gone, whereas the heavier British, German and Soviet tanks could take frontal hits from a Sherman with a short 75mm all day long and be fine

>>32346141
The Panther is a great design but classic case of Germans overthinking everything
look at those tracks

File: Pershing vs Panther vs Tiger I.png (2MB, 1104x2532px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1104x2532px

>>32346141