Always thought German Panzers were superior. Look at videos.

>>34230828
because during the war the allies had to make shit up to cover up how bad they were at war (particularly on the eastern front and north africa)

>try to fuck the Axis over as much as possible
>complain when their quality drops

>>34230828

How little did german armour even do in combat? Wasn't it mostly Artillery and infantry that got the job done? With some bombers added in. The StuG III F+ series were at least decent, right? MAde from the chassies of Pzkfw III, that were pieces of shit with just a 37mm turret-gun.

>>34230828
because the instant you talk poorly about "muh german engineering" the wehraboos come out of the woodworks to cry foul

see >>34230840

>314 replies, 42 images omitted

>>34230828
German Engineering was amazing. Too amazing in fact, they spent so much time with fine craftsmen and building tanks to last, they had far less.

1800 heavy tanks doesn't turn back the 100k plus medium tanks the opposing side had.

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Actually according to documents (Needs citation) maintenance is not an issue really when you are on the offensive. Shit breaks down, why bother making it super engineered? The German Panzers were still extremely over-engineered for its time.

When an army is on the offensive, and Tanks (& other vehicles) break down (or run out of ammo, fuel, gets lost, minor damage like track-loss) they are easily recoverable. You can bring mechanics to them, and repair them on field.

When on the defensive, and tanks are lost for reasons, the enemy storms the area, and simply destroy, capture, tow, or tip enemy tanks to deny them. This is the key to modern bevegungs-krieg the germans did in WW2.

Super costly counter-attacks were war-turners, such as Kharkov III, and Kursk. When an attack is halted, then counter attacked and pushed back, losses in equipment are massive, this is were losses are irreplaceable.

Look at the start of Barbarossa, or Dunkirk. Lots of equipment was abandoned.
Shermans put out of action in 44-forward was simply re-crewed and re-used. Just some welding work on the entry-holes and restock fuel, maybe fix an engine or something.

TL:DR Losses in vehicles and equipment are immense when you have to draw back hastily, and very minor when you attack and win a battle. Greatest losses are when your attack is pushed back. Why bother with reliability?

>>34230828
Because people don't like multi faceted concepts, they want simple.
Also because it's not good for national morale to believe we defeated Germany mostly by leveling their country with strategic bombers.

Because many designs were of the kind of
>"OH SHIT WE NEED BIGGER TANKS, NOW. PREFERABLY YESTERDAY"

Allied tanks were designed like 7-8 years before the war. T-34 is named 34 because the basic idea was born in 1934. The Tiger etc, was designed 1941, and pushed into service 1942.
As my old teacher used to say about arts in history
"Try go home and do it yourself and you will see how hard it really is". Doing it under time pressure it gets even worse.
Also many short-cuts were made to save cost and production time in man-power-hours etc, even though the design was good, it wasn't followed to a 100% by the factories.

>Also 4-5 different manufactureres doing the same models, replacement part chaos, failed tries to standardize and also, constant remodeling. Pz III had fucking A B C D E F G H I J K and finally L-series. Keep all that modifications, parts and screws remembered and present on the front for the motor-pool.

>Also the Germans used a shit-load of captured tanks.

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>>34230828

The Germans were pushing for better designs, heavier guns and chassis.They always tried to out-do the enemy. The engines and tracks failed mostly.

The only modification allowed for the T-34 production-line was just a decrease of time or cost. Then they did the whole remake, T-34-85. Super-standardized and effective.

Having just 1 tank, or very similar variants helps the maintenance crew.

There were 7 types of Panzers and god knows how many TD, SP Art and vehicles introduced in just 7 years. Try to train mechanics and stock-pile spare-parts for all of them

>>34230956

>ACHTUALY
Germans stood their grounds and massive amount of soldiers were captured in 1944. We're talking millions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr_Pocket

317,000+ captured

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falaise_Pocket

50,000 captured

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bagration
262,929 missing and captured 399,102

>>34231176
The total number of prisoners taken on the Western Front in April 1945 by the Western Allies was 1,500,000.

>That's actually like the thrid the size of operation Barbarossa in manpower.

Imagine if they kept fighting and had a high morale.

>>34231050
>Try go home and do it yourself and you will see how hard it really is
Murika here, apparently it wasn't that hard.

>>34230828
There's currently a backlash against Panzers underway, much of it supported by WoTkiddies that are pissy that German tanks aren't super amazing in game.

Some of it is justified, much isn't, overall German tanks performed fine and most issues were sorted out before the war ended with most units reporting good rates of readiness.

There were obvious mistakes along the way: Maus, Jagdtiger, early German heavy tanks, Maus again. But let's not pretend the Valiant never happened, tank destroyer doctrine was useful, or that the KV-1 wasn't exactly like its namesake (embarrassingly bad at everything other than being impossible to get rid of).

And that's not including things like the Lee and Pershing which were excellent examples of corners cut for the needs of war.

Because hyping the shit out of your enemy, this big Nazi menace that almost took over the world!, is making your triumphant win look even more triumphanter.

Germany was poor, had shit tech but zerg rushed passive neighbors. They hoped for a knock-out blow, not giving the allies 3-4 years to adapt and out-produce them.

If the allied had lost, German would hype the shit out of the Allied tanks as well.
>"This tank (T-34) with its superior speed could in no way be built for simply defense!. The Bolshevijk enemy was planning to invade the Germanic Europe! Good thing our boys in Feldgrau swooped the Soviet nation in a preemptive strike like the Reich-Falcon itself hunting mice and saved the German people, while also liberated our Russian Kameraden from the evil jews! *Black and white film-music with horns fade triumphantly"

>>34230956
>Also because it's not good for national morale to believe we defeated Germany mostly by leveling their country with strategic bombers.
We really didn't. The only thing we managed to shut down was work on the Maus. And that was helping them.

>>34231285

See
>>34231176
Germany's Army had shit tactics after they sacked Guderian, Manstein Rommel and their likes. Ardennes offensive was kinda cool

>>34231285
>>34231276
>>34231254
>>34230956

https://youtu.be/9rUocSj2dHc?t=1m25s

Watch for 30 seconds

>>34231254
>hard

Shermans was kinda shit but worked. Pershing was OK

>>34230828

They were awesome when they worked. But they didn't always work

The Panther was the best Tank of the war. They should have started making them in 1940, as the only tank. Also the different model that got rejected with the more reliable leaf-spring suspension.

>>34231276

>Lost it completely

>>34230828

It's Discovery and History Chanel's fault. Sensationalism.

What sounds best?
Allies beat this great evil army wit their super advanced stuff!

or

>We just shelled brain-washed 13-year olds with bolt-action rifles til they surrendered while we air-bombed their hometowns to shit.

Also fuck Poland and Polish independence, the reason the war started in the first place

Eh, all war-machines get their share of FanWank

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>>34231566
>Also fuck Poland and Polish independence, the reason the war started in the first place
So? Maybe Germany just needs to learn to stop chimping out all the time whenever it wants something.

>>34231677

No I meant how the West-allies just shat all over Poland after the war, The warzawa rrevolt, Soviet annexation etc.

When Germany wanted back Danzig it ment war, when soviets wanted to fucking take over, no problem my man.

It is almost like it was just a ploy to go to war with Germany.

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>>34231342
Pershing is my tankfu, bit let's not pretend that it wasn't absolutely fucked until Korea by having the same engine as the Sherman on a much heavier tank.

It was entirely the right move logistically during WWII, but it was heavily to the detriment of the tank as a whole.

As for the Sherman, it was made in a little over a year most of which was America figuring out how to cast a turret large enough for a 75mm and it's improved variants, particularly the Easy 8, were excellent tanks in their own regard.

The Lee on the otherhand looks like a complete piece of shit, but then you realize it existed solely to put a 75mm in North Africa, was designed so fast that the factory was tooling up using the drafts drawn the day before, and that it was never meant to be produced for more than about a year and you realize it's actually an engineering marvel.

>>34231566
The war started with the Sudetenland, Daladier was just too smart to tell Hitler.

>>34231342
Is Shermans had better access to HVAP rounds the myth of it being a shit tank wouldn't be a thing.

>>34230858
Afaik the stugs were cheap and could kill everything besides heavy tanks. When experienced german tank crews faught with heavily armed tanks like the tiger or panther against inexperienced soviet crews they did destroy alot of enemies. That changed when the soviets improved their tanks, equipped them with radios and when their crews got more experienced. The tiger was a good tank, altough expensive and difficult to maintain, the pz iv was reliable but a little outdated and the panther was well armed but had some flaws like insufficient optics, weak side armor and bad reliability of some versions. The german tank hunters and stugs generally did well when fighting against armor, but when they were used as a tank replacement due to shortage in tanks they fared worse.

>>34230828

wait up a minute, wait up a minute, you mean to tell me newly design tanks rushed out into combat service had mechanical difficulties? No fucking way!

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>>34231254
>>34231335
Would after action reports actually list tanks that broke down due to human error vs strict mechanical problems?

>>34231830
>Pershing
There's a relatively new documentary about the tank duel in Cologne. The daughter of one of the German crew was interviewed, recalling her father's grudge; believing the Americans had used a German tank to trick them, having never seen a Pershing before. Kinda humorous.

>>34231254

I wouldn't call Jagdtiger a mistake. Consider the war environment in Germany at the time. The chasis were already built, they didn't require the time and resources for turret production and it was cheaper and faster to slap on a 128mm gun. That and the war had officially become a defensive one at the tie of its production. It's not a whole lot different then the Elefant. There were going to be 100 built chassis' not being used, so you might as well get them out in the field.

The only problems it had stemmed from the Tiger II to begin with, as well as a insufficiently trained crew and access to fuel.

>>34232803
Speer was incredibly self-serving in all of his testimony, take anything he said with a grain of salt

>>34230828
Wehraboos, wehraboos everywhere. Muh glorious Krupps steel! Muh snazzy uniforms! Clean Wehrmacht!

>>34233281

how profound. Thank you for your contribution

>>34233281
Incredibly insightful, what an excellent observation. Please, fuck my daughter for having provided us with such a contribution.

>>34232803
German reports often only counted irrepairable/catastrophic losses as losses at the end of the engagement. They would then count the remaining breakdowns and mission kills that they had to leave behind as lost several weeks later, long after leaving the area they left them in.

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>>34230828
Lets run down the list!
1. Videogames post 90s. Think of how many kids grew up on MoH fighting the 'unbeatable german war machine'.
2. Mistaken beliefs due to faulty and/or amateur analysis.
3. Soviets.
4. The fact that the Germans somehow managed to knock France out of the war in less than 50 days. Blame the French Government for that one, and for staining a country with a proud history with over 70 years worth of surrender memes.
5. Typical 'Underdog' propaganda.
6. People tend to gloss over the sheer, astounding, absolutely fucking mind boggling amount of money the US spent on WW2.

The Panther and Tiger in a tank v tank engagement were superior to virtually anything they would face thanks to armor and their guns....but they just were a poor use of resources and they broke down all the damn time.

Germany rushed them both into production with engines and transmissions designed for 30 ton tanks now bearing the strain of these 45 ton monsters. The weight took it's toll, and instead of doing the logical thing and designing a better transmission and engine to deal with their extreme weight they kept trying to design new tanks instead of perfecting what they had.

That was a major problem for Germany, instead of building a ton of what worked like the US and USSR did, they kept looking for some bigger and better tank. They should have just made all the Panzer IVs and Stugs possible at home, kept their Czech factory pumping out Hetzers, and then took the time to make something like the Tiger or Panther, and do them right. Thats it.

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>>34230828

"Death Traps" is a book that is largely responsible for shaping the perception of American tanks as being inferior to their German opponents. Written by Belton Cooper, this book paints a very unflattering picture of the M4 Sherman tank which served as the main battle tank for the USA during WW2. Cooper served as an ordinance Lieutenant in the European theatre of the war, and in this book he characterizes the M4 Sherman as a poorly designed tank, wholly inferior to the German tanks that it went up against.

Cooper paints himself as an expert on this subject, but his book has many issues which hurt his credibility. Despite being framed as a memoir, Cooper frequently exposits upon events which he had no direct connection to. For example, he criticizes General Patton for delaying the development of the M26 Pershing tank (which Cooper regards as vastly superior to the M4 Sherman) when there is actually very little evidence that Patton impeded the M26 in any way. Patton was a field commander and thus he had very little influence on the development of new tanks. A more detailed overview of "Death Traps" and its flaws can be found here:

https://tankandafvnews.com/2015/01/29/debunking-deathtraps-part-1/

The important takeaway here is that Cooper's book had a huge impact on how the M4 Sherman was perceived after the war had concluded. He was frequently invited into documentaries as a "tank expert" and thus his views leaked into the documentaries, which in turn were absorbed by viewers as factual.

>>34232031
No it would have still been a shit tank.

>>34230916
This is the correct answer.

>>34230858
Fuck right off, German military absolutely relied on armoured maneuvers with combined arms until 1942 when advance halted on all fronts. Afterwards tanks became less important but still remained useful as quick reaction reserves that can move to reinforce locations quickly.
German arms procurement and a very large part of strategic management was dogshit which lead to significant inefficiencies in obtaining tanks, and the greatest issue was numbers, any minute differences in reliability and performance were offset by the fact that there were 4 times more shermans and T-34s produced than there were PzIIIs and IVs, and the allies also had the ability to maintain the supply situation of their armoured units.

>>34233741

The M4 did nothing wrong.

>>34233741
>Shermans see decades of postwar service in Korea and the Middle East, utterly trashing their more modern competition in both theatres
>is shit

Pick one.

Meanwhile the vaunted Panther was dropped by the French by 1949, less than a decade after it was introduced.

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>>34233832
to be fair, the israeli shermans were heavily modified, used mainly against t-34s (pic related) and syrian panzer ivs, and the french wanted to develop their own amx tanks.

plus they fought against arabs

>>34231307
>Muh Rommel.

Africa was lost because Rommel was a poor strategist and massively overextended. He wasn't a good strategist at all, he just fought a foe that was initially unprepared for war and heavily outnumbered, outgunned and out resourced.

>>34233832
>Korea
>Middle east.

Hardware quality doesn't matter when you're fighting forces as inept as NK, China and Arabs nations.

>>34233890
Damn straight, rommel should've just established and holded a line like he was ordered to and waited to be steamrolled by a fuckton of Allied tanks

>>34233854
>to be fair, the israeli shermans were heavily modified

This was my point. The Sherman's design was incredibly easy to upgrade. Massive turret ring for its size meant the Israelis could throw on a turret capable of mounting a long 105mm gun. Advancements in ammunition meant the Sherman was capable of engaging and destroying T-54/55/62 series tanks.

Meanwhile, the Sherman's closest counterpart in the German army, the Pz IV, reached the limit of what could be upgraded by the early 40s. Germany then had to build a new medium tank, and got such a rushed and unreliable piece of shit that the French dropped it the second they got their own industry restarted.

>>34234046
No doubt the sherman was a good tank.
However, it's armor was still lacking, it was developed with british knowledge from the war and ten years after the pz iv, so the comparison isn't really fair. Also, the panther was basically a good design which just got kind of fucked over by hitler and wartime conditions (lack of quality material, hitler increasing its weight by 10 tons etc) https://m.youtube.com/watch?/v=SmXEly5_u38

>>34233338
Roughly how much DID the U.S spend on ww2?

>>34234214
Adjusted for inflation, around 4 trillion USD. Original costs were around 300 billion. To put things in perspective, the atomic weapons program alone spent more money than the entire German war effort.

>>34234129
>the panther was basically a good design

nothing about panther design was good, the only good thing was new production techniques that meant panther was much cheaper to produce than legacy tanks

form suspension to component accessibility panther was huge step backwards from design and engineering standpoint esp considering how much experience and know how germans had by this time of the war

>>34234244
Wasn't the cost of iraq aldo in the trillions? Seems like a lot of value for the money t b b

Paraphrasing:

The Sherman was designed to be built on an assembly line.

The T34 was designed to be built by illiterate peasants with hand tools.

The Panzer IV was designed like a $15k custom hunting rifle.

Each is catered to the builders specific strengths. But the quality of the German tanks couldn't overcome the numbers of the allies.

>>34234253
Around 1.7 to 2 trillion over the course of approx 15 years, compared to 4 trillion over the course of approx 4 years. This is excluding projected and indirect costs. Cursory searches turn up a total of anywhere from 2 trillion to 6 trillion spent on post war recovery from Iraq.

Ultimately, modern warfare is more expensive and will only continue to become more expensive.

>>34234250

gun that can destroy essentially every tank (altough admittedly lacking HE capability)
strong frontal armor
high maneuverability (see vid)

the suspension had to be built like that because of a lack of rubber, i think

it wasn't perfect (optics, side armor, he, reliability), but the way it is shit on here is unreasonable

>>34234129
>Also, the panther was basically a good design which just got kind of fucked over by hitler and wartime conditions (lack of quality material, hitler increasing its weight by 10 tons

The only "good" part of the design was the gun, and even that's debatable because the upgunning was such a large part of why the panther was overweight to begin with, leading to all of its suspension, balance, drivetrain, and transmission issues.

>>34230828
Congratulations, you peeled away baby's first layer of propaganda.

Also late war metallurgy and machining was worse than Russian early war quality because strategic bombing actually works.

>>34230858
The Blitzkrieg was real, breakthrough armor is not a meme, but the motorized infantry and well coordinated and mobile artillery are forgotten as key parts of the maneuver.

German logistics were horse-drawn.

>>34231102
The T-34-85 was such a huge upgrade you can't even really call it the same tank. Still a deathtrap, but a gigantic improvement in every meaningful measure.

>people complain that needing a wrench to open a maintenance panel is bad

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>>34234272
>The Panzer IV was designed like a $15k custom hunting rifle.

No, the Pz.IV was designed and built like a normal gun. It wasn't an over-engineered, or even really complex vehicle in the slightest. It wasn't the "anyone can do it" sort of construction of the T-34, or maintenance of the M4, but it wasn't even close to Panther or Tiger 1/2 levels of stupid.

>>34231830
The M3 Lee/Grant despite being a stopgap 75mm on a pre-war M2 Medium was the best tank in North Africa, while the Sherman was the second most produced tank in the world (after T-34 series) and had the best safety record of WWII. 80% survival rate for crew members (1 death per tank destruction).

>>34234434
>people complain that needing a wrench to change gear is bad

ftfy

>>34234467

What exactly was it about the Tigers that made them so hard to manufacture?

>>34234493
By the industrial standards of 1943 and 44, the Tiger I was not a particularly hard tank to build. While it incorperated certain features that made it difficult to maintain, such as an over-stressed transmission and a complex suspension system, the actual manufacture of the tank was pretty straight forward.

That being said, in a nation like Germany, where you already have solid tank designs, competent crews, and a comparatively limited industrial capability, the idea of building yet another totally new tank makes little sense.

Of course, this is not to evoke the age old "if the Nazi's had built 1000 Pz.IVs instead of 100 Tigers..." bit. They were fucked either way. The point is that the Tiger fucked them a little harder and faster.

>>34234285
the concept of medium tank, everyone had figured out by the time what medium does

>gun that can destroy essentially every tank

so its a tank destroyer then ?

>strong frontal armor

adequate frontal armor, non existing armor everywhere else

so this is a td of american variety then ?

>high maneuverability
unless you fuck up your transmission (by far the weakest part of tank) that takes ages to replace
panthers agility was its great strength that was hardly used

>the suspension had to be built like that because of a lack of rubber, i think

the suspension was build this way cos germans were completely mental by this time

they made a unreliable TD and pushed in into role of medium tank, the design of panther was just wrong

>>34234493
wasn't optimized for rapid assembly, too many machining steps per part.

Consider two dongles that are otherwise identical. One can be forged on a die with 1 man-hour by a relatively unskilled machinist. The other part requires 5 man hours by a skilled machinist and more distinct manufacturing steps.

Consider the difference between stamped, cast or forged firearm parts. Especially the lower stress, loose tolerance receivers.

They built the tanks using slave labor in the camps, and as such the people in the camps sabotaged them at every opportunity.

>>34234493
German manufacturing processes were awful. They had Tigers up in stands, possibly up to a week (or longer in some cases) at a time while individually customizing each tank. They didn't have factory crew, they had craftsmen, which meant that tank production was achingly slow in comparison.

Initial production was a mere 25 a month, peaking at 104. The total number produced by August 44 was around 1500. The US produced 8000 M4 Shermans. In 1942. This is the difference in scale. Throw in similar numbers per year of T-34s and the situation becomes even more bleak.

>>34233832

The French dropped the Panther so quickly because they wanted any excuse to start fielding trials for their own tank industry rather then relying on hand me downs. They used every excuse they could find.

>>34234673

Tiger I production was a stopgap measure which was winding down with Panther production taking its place.

>>34230858
It was their spearhead in all campaigns. Even the US Thunder Run into Iraq was indirectly similar to the German thrust through the Ardennes and into France

>>34234705
When your proaganda relies on your stop-gap measures, you've lost the war

>>34231050
the tiger was designed in 1938

>>34234285
>maneuver ability
The panther had a terrible reverse speed and extremely poor drivetrain reliability. It had good cross country speeds but with a final drive that is in danger of failing past 150km makes that negligible

>>34230861
then comes the wehrabullies to bash the wehraboos ad infinitum.

>>34230916
what most seem incapable of grasping is having a superior weapon is only part of the equation.
being able to deploy successfully requires many other factors beside just the actual design.
maintenance being high on that list. something the 3rd reich was incapable of providing.

>>34230828
You took the history channel bait. Germans were shit at armor and didn't understand how to properly utilize it. Hitler was stuck with the fantasy of super tanks that could defeat companies of shermans when the reality was that most of his army was driving around up armored and up gunned versions of the very same panzer 4s they took France with in 39.

Flat armor faces, poor engines and transmissions, and a waste of resources on glorified tank destroyers that were only good for their guns like the Tiger 1 is what made the German armor effort shit.

People that think German armor was really good are the same people that think that the Tiger was a good tank and not just a shit box built to carry around an 88.

>>34234581
Just about everything you stated is complete bullshit.

>Tank Destroyer
In what way does having a gun capable of penetrating just about every tank make the Panther a tank destroyer? Are you honestly going to have us believe that the IS-2 is tank destroyer now? What about the Easy Eight? Or the Tiger? Are these all tank destroyers simply because they have good guns? Do you even know what a Tank Destroyer is and how it's defined? Because it certainly doesn't seem like it.

>Armour
Having ~140mm of frontal armour is good, especially when you consider that the T-34/85 only has ~90mm, the M4A3E8 only has ~92mm, and even the Sherman Jumbo only has 10mm more with ~150mm. This is assuming my math is correct. Furthermore, to say that the Panther has non-existent armour everywhere else displays supreme ignorance. The Panther literally has more side and rear armour than the average Sherman, yet you'd be hard pressed to find anyone claiming that the Sherman "had nonexistent armour" or otherwise claim that having poor armour makes the Sherman a TD instead of an proper tank.

>Maneuverability
This is probably the only category in which I'd say you're correct, however it's still immensely obvious that you're trying to downplay the fact that the Panther did have good maneuverability and off-road performance.

>Suspension
It's literally an established fact that the suspension was built the way it was because it used less rubber, and also because it provided better performance for heavier vehicles.

>>34234973

>yet you'd be hard pressed to find anyone claiming that the Sherman "had nonexistent armour"

Are you kidding? That's probably the most repeated claim about the M4 Sherman.

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stop bullying panther *gentle reeeeee* ;_;

>>34235002
Not anymore. Thankfully, most people have begun to move on from the "Sherman deathtrap" meme.

>>34235002
yeah, from 12 year old wot players. Or do you take them seriously.

>>34234949
>Flat armor faces
Not knowing of hardened steel plates vs cast armor
yeah youre fucking retarded

>>34234696
[citation needed]

>>34234493
There were constant small changes made to the design during production that would sometimes only appear on several vehicles before being deleted, to the point that on average no Tiger was identical to the Tiger six tanks ahead or behind it on the assembly line. This is in addition to the issues already mentioned.

>>34235030
it's the eight year olds that you gotta watch out for, anon...just sayin'.

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>>34233710
The Biggest problem with Cooper was that he only saw destroyed tanks. He was in charge of cleaning and repairing ones off of the battlefield.

>>34234949
>Germans were shit at armor and didn't understand how to properly utilize it
Are you baiting? Germans practically created modern armoured doctrine

>>34234673
>>>craftsmen

This. Everything on German tanks had to be perfect and required lots of man hours to build. American tanks were cranked out on an assembly line with industrial workers. Soviet tanks were simply/roughly made so just about anyone could be quickly trained in the assembly process.

>>34235110

*Russians*

>>34233897
>it doesn't matter because i said it doesn't matter
Ok kid

>>34235066
that and speaking as an expert on matters he was short on facts, but not opinions.

>>34235110
The British were the pioneers of rapid armored movements, but the Germans perfected it and put it into widespread use.

>>34235116
nice meme, pidor

>>34230916
Best answer. German tanks were mostly superior to their counterparts on the allied side. The Soviets and Americans could Zerg jagd panzers and konigstigers 10-1 and could eventually score a hit on the side armor

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why did you retards fall for this obvious bait

>>34235157
He's not wrong. Germans learned how to tank and how to airborne from the USSR in the 30s.

>>34234973
holly shit nigger

>In what way does having a gun capable of penetrating just about every tank make the Panther a tank destroyer?

in the way that you gun is extremely brittle and hardly capable to sustain daily he lobbing every other medium could and this is even forgetting how shitty Sprgr. 42 was

you seem to be with germans on this one and somehow believe that having medium as a tank destroyer is a good idea

>Having ~140mm of frontal armour is good

where ? only mantlet was 100mm, front plate was 80 lower 60 and, sides were 40 and that thing was at least 10 tons heaver than counterparts and just about as heavy as good damn is-2

> yet you'd be hard pressed to find anyone claiming that the Sherman "had nonexistent armour" or otherwise claim that having poor armour makes the Sherman a TD instead of an proper tank.

you see sherman had luxury of 15 ton less weight

>It's literally an established fact that the suspension was built the way it was because it used less rubber, and also because it provided better performance for heavier vehicles.

where ?
interlocked road wheels were a bad idea it is simple as that and even if they used less (they did not ) crippling your crews was not a solution

>>34233710
>this pasta again

>>34235287
>Doesn't understand what a TD is
>Doesn't understand how sloped armour and LOS thickness works
>Doesn't know how interlocked suspension works
>Ignores half the points made in the post
>Reddit spacing
>Shit grammar
Are you actually retarded? At the very least you could do everyone a favour and actually know what the fuck you're talking about before shit out your verbal diarrhea.

>>34230916
It's also difficult to maintain those said pieces of machinery when your petroleum and bearings factories are being bombed to shit.

>>34235528
>Doesn't understand what a TD is

its a role

>Doesn't understand how sloped armour and LOS thickness works
not its you as you completely fucked up your other tank los examples to make panther look better its almost liker you are invested in this matter so lets compare tanks armor, lets do it
45 fucking tons, forty five just like is-2 and pershing go the fuck ahead

>Ignores half the points made in the post
maybe i agree with those points ? or do you thing you are completely wrong at everything ?

>Reddit spacing
what is this even, fuck i even went to reddit right now and none spaces shit like that out here
maybe i am in the wrong spot, tell me which part of reddit is your favorite?

>Shit grammar
yeah, its called not having english as your native or studded language

>Are you actually retarded? At the very least you could do everyone a favour and actually know what the fuck you're talking about before shit out your verbal diarrhea.

and you could base your claims with evidence instead of "everyone knows this" but well world is not perfect, so its back to you - save oxygen and end your life

>>34230916
>German engineering was amazing
Overly complicated doesn't necessarily equate to 'amazing'. Just look at the hatch on a panther for the commander, why were they pissing about with screws, just have a hinge and a spring.

>>34231102
Just look at US vehicles, the majority were using M3/M4 running gear and hulls.

>>34231342
>Sherman was kinda shit but worked
I cannot think of a tank I'd rather have served in, except for maybe a Centurion and that's only because I like it. Sherman's had best survival rates of the war.

>>34231696
>a ploy to go to war with Germany
Oh do fuck off, how exactly do you think the Western allies were going to get Poland back before the Soviets reached it? You do realise that the Western allies were across a bit of water called the Atlantic? There simply wasn't the ability to liberate absolutely everything the Germans had occupied.

>>34233338
I'd give you a +1 but that would be astoundingly gay, so i won't.

>>34233338
>Poland lasted longer than the French did.

de Gaulle should've been hung from a tree

>>34230952

Good post. Very underrated.

>>34235668
You are missing the point... Complicated machining absolutely means it is an amazing feat, especially back then. It is a non-argumentative point.

>>34235668
>Just look at the hatch on a panther for the commander, why were they pissing about with screws, just have a hinge and a spring.

Because the hatch was heavy as fuck. Modern tanks have thinner hatches.

>>34231254
>Jagdtiger
that was not a mistake, manning them with inexperienced crews and using bad tactics was. the machine itself was fine. the only time the germans lost them when they had to retreat.

>>34234285
>strong frontal armour
That's really reassuring when at the same time they had to add extra plates to the side hull because the Russians were punching through it with fucking AT rifles.

Should Germany have converted it's Pz. IIIs into StuGs and StuHs once the Pz. IV rolled out?

>>34234949
The rest of your post aside, sloped armour isn't as superior as playing WoT (may its devs be cursed for forever altering a generations perception of tanks) makes it seem.
They decided that the trade off in internal volume wasn't worth it. It was a fair decision to make.

>>34234973
The interleaved suspension had nothing to do with using less rubber and everything to do with engineers getting to design it with absolutely no input from its intended users.
It allowed a low ground pressure whilst maintaining a relatively short length of contact with the ground, meaning good cross country performance whilst maintaining the ability to turn relatively easily. Nothing to do with rubber usage (spoiler: you could just have built normal wheels and not had rubber at all if you were that fussed about rubber supplies).
>provided better performance for heavier vehicles
Stop making heavier vehicles.

>>34235198
Welcome to /k/.

>>34235866
>an amazing feat
Well no, other nations could have done that. They just didn't, because it wasn't worth the effort.
>>34235969
No other tanks during WWII to my knowledge had a complicated screw jack to open the hatch. Its amazing how a nice big spring makes pushing up a heavy hatch relatively easy.

>>34230828

makes you look better to illustrate how you triumphed against overwhelming odds to achieve victory, yadda yadda

Kind of like Bismarck was some sort of super battleship that would annihilate the RN on its own, but only through sheer guts and determination did the Royal Navy triumph

except not really

>>34235815

Poland overall contributed more to the war than France did.

Below the US, British Empire and USSR, it was Poland that provided the most to the allied effort.

>>34234129
>ten years after the pz iv

>>34235819

Thanks my man

>>34236152

see
>>34231276

>>34236194

What if the Polish started fighting the USSR. Would the allies help?

Just imagine if the tiger had been built like tanks in the US

Great armor, shit mechanical problems solved, hyd turret done away with.

50,000 built!

Germany might actually won the war!

>>34236427
Pz iv was developed in 1934, m4 in 1941. Alright, seven years, but that time still brought up large improvements in tank design based on combat experience

>>34235157
He's right though, joint German-Soviet exercises were a major factor in both nation's armored success later.

>>34237532

There were joint German-Soviet exercises? That's kind of surprising.

>>34230916
>builidng tanks to last
The Panther transmission needed replacing every 100 kilometers or so

>>34237546
Yeah, they were actually on fairly friendly relations during the interwar years and Germany actually sent personnel to Russia to cross train.

A lot of the reason that the Russian officer corps got purged prior to WWII was because Stalin didn't trust his German-trained officers.

>>34237612

Wow, the thing about the officers actually makes sense! Can't believe I've always over-looked this!

>>34237612

>A lot of the reason that the Russian officer corps got purged prior to WWII was because Stalin didn't trust his German-trained officers.

Then why did he let them undergo the training to begin with? What the fuck was his problem?

>>34237645
Stalin was originally dealing with the Weimar Republic, which he was much more sympathetic to due their common desire to partition Poland again and because closer ties meant giving him a better inroad with the German Communist party.

Relations only started to go downhill once Hitler entered the scene.

The PZ IV was alright, it was only outgunned <greately< the last year of the war. 1939-1944 it was good enough for most operations.
Heavier enemy tanks got a taste of the 88 FlAK 36

>>34230876

We-re there soon enough

>>34235705

I've understood it's quite the opposite, Shermans had a relatively high mortality rate.

>>34238309
What? No. Shermans were the safest tank to serve in bar none. They were one of the few tanks with spring loaded hatches, and moving the ammunition to the floor along with wet stowage meant it was much more difficult for them to catch fire when hit, meaning much fewer cases of catastrophic destruction.

>>34230828
we still base a lot of tank design off of those early german tanks. that was their real advtange, the shermans had trouble penetrating their armor because.

>>34230828
I worked on a Pz4, and some other Axis armor.

The M4 was way better, mechanically. Far more integrated systems, far more reliable, far more attention paid to end user concerns..

For a ~35 ton medium, it was literally the best tank of WW2.

>>34238357

Nonsense.
Barring a handful of trivial efforts, the majority of realization was the Merritt-Brown gearbox( British) and the electrohydraulich traverse coupled with gyroscopic stabilization (U.S.).

>>34238309
Not even close.

Being injured or killed from a penetrating hit to an M4 was stupidly low, ended up being ~20%, Paz I've ~ 40% and nearly 70% for t-34. I'll be able to pull out the statistics when I get home from work

>>34238499
M4 had one of the lowest crew mortality rates of the war.

Well documented, outside of absurd pop- history works like Coopers book.

>>34230952
Nice

>>34238499
The trouble with the T-34 is that the ammo storage was laid out at a time when German AT weapons were lol 37mm so it was extremely tempting to make a tank proof to a pak36, rather than one that could be penetrated but more survivable afterwards. The Sherman was designed just late enough that everyone could see how hard it was to stay ahead of the arms race, so it was smarter to make something that could function even past its prime.

>>34233710
Fucking this. If you want to know where the now dieing "HHHURR DUUUR SHRMANZ R SHIT" meme comes from look no further.

Cooper literally made issues that every tank has and made as if these were all specific to the Sherman and to the sherman only. After he croaked and his copypasta ended people started to do their own research and studies the sherman in a new un biased light, there is where we start to see the truth about the sherman design come out and the fact that it was no where close to as bad as the book makes it out to be

Also for a good read, check out Faint Praise, written by a spearhead officer and gives a new look on the sherman's performance and how it was really used.

>>34238309
Not at all.

Shermans were easily knocked out, yes, but they were easy to get out of and by late 44 they were using wet ammo storage which meant that only the actual hit would kill anyone, and you didn't have to worry about getting blown to smithereens by the ammo blowing up.

Being in a Sherman was one of the safest frontline occupations one could have other than being in a Pershing (the safest tank in the world at the time).

>>34232823
Sauce?

>>34232889
The only reason the Jagdtiger exists was because it was the only thing that could reliably haul around a 128mm gun; the towed 128 would have been a nightmare to transport by horse (as most most german guns were). It's basically just a mobile AT gun and isn't even good at being that because it broke down constantly. I'd rather have a Konigstiger.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Mechanized_Force

As I mentioned earlier, it was the Brits who pioneered mechanized warfare.

>>34230916
>100k medium tanks

>>34238988

T-34 35,119
T-34-85 29,430
Sherman 49,234

>>34230828
>Why do tv-shows etc lie to us about German engineering? Their tanks were shit in ww2.

Because it sells advertising time.
It's the predecessor of Youtube clickbait vids.

>>34238988
>>34239097

113,783 produced allied medium tanks

>>34238837
>but they were easy to get out of
except for, you know, the loader, who didn't have a hatch for most of the production run

>>34235866
>Complicated machining absolutely means it is an amazing feat

But... No.

>>34230916
so amazing that you had to remove the turret and pull the transmission through the turret ring to maintain the transmission that broke more often than a Hi Point

>>34233710
>"Death Traps" is a book that is largely responsible for shaping the perception of American tanks as being inferior to their German opponents.
After the Bulge and Hurtgen Forrest the Sherman was derided pretty hard by journalists, becoming something of a scandal in American media. "Death Traps" only caused a modern resurgence.

People have been refuting Sherman memes since the 1940's;
http://www.digitalhistoryarchive.com/uploads/2/5/4/1/25411694/article_by_us_army_tank_battalion_commander_-_tank_versus_tank_1946.pdf

>>34234272
this is a meme

>>34235615
Trying to meme as if the Panther wasnt the best all round medium tank of the war is pants on head retarded. The decision to rush 76mm armed shermans into armoured divisions in Europe was partly based on the fact that allied intelligence discovered that the Germans intended to field the Panther as a medium tank and not a heavy tank, and therefore could expect to face them in considerable numbers.

As for this 'TD role' bullshit, only the British and Americans entertained this fanciful idea that tanks could just support the infantry in a vacuum while TDs destroyed enemy armour, the Germans never had such illusions.

>>34240754
>the Germans never had such illusions.
neither did the americans

>>34240773
yes they did, instead of realising that the 75mm sherman wasnt going to cut it in the future, they insisted on TD doctrine, insisting that tanks weren't supposed to be tasked with destroying other tanks, which just didn't cut it for offensive warfare. Once enough 76mm and wet stowage, E8s and Jumbos reached the front line the charade could be dropped somewhat, but that was in the last months of the entire war.

>>34240802
kek. you have no idea what you're talking about, starting with the 76 mm gun timeline or that the armored force didn't envision enemy armored forces as targets

>>34240816
yeah i think you should pick up a book, or read the primary sources that indicate how the Sherman was inadequate when compared to contemporary German armour until very late in the war

>>34240834
i'm confident with my books and armored force field manuals. keep spouting your bullshit, mang.

>>34240834

There is literally no evidence that Shermans had any more difficulty in fighting German tanks than German takes had in fighting Shermans. If you choose to dispute this, then please counter with specific examples of engagements where German armor was able to triumph over Shermans.

>>34240854
keep pretending your mediocre tanks were fantastic because precious murica can do no wrong. The US army rejected the 76mm armed sherman until it was unacceptably late, that is a undeniable fact. The Sherman was an alright tank, but pretending it was equal to German armour until wet stowage and upgunned and up armoured models came through and Germany was already on its knees reveals the childish american bias you have.

Im happy you're so confident with your ignorance and 'field manuals', stay basic

>>34240952

German tanks never had wet stowage at any point in the war.

>>34240952
>your mediocre tanks
ha, i didn't own them. i was calling out your shit knowledge about the 76mm gun timeline and the assertion that the armored force was to defer from engaging enemy armored forces, which is doctrinally false. keep flailing around about different things once you've been proved to be spouting bullshit

>>34240952

Point out a specific engagement where a Sherman was firing at Panzer, and the Sherman wasn't able to penetrate the enemy tank.

>>34240930
that is totally specious, the consensus of most historical analysis of this subject is that the Sherman was an under performer given the huge industrial capacity of the Allied powers. Provide evidence that the earlier Sherman with its 75mm gun, no wet stowage and no extra armour could compete on equal terms with Pz IVs and the odd Panther or Stug in offensive battles. After Normandy it's a different story as 76mm gun and wet stowage equipped models take the lead.

>>34241018
>Provide evidence that the earlier Sherman with its 75mm gun, no wet stowage and no extra armour could compete on equal terms with Pz IVs and the odd Panther or Stug in offensive battles
contemporary studies prove that the side that fires first usually wins, no matter what tank they're using. newsflash: the germans were usually defending.

they weren't playing fucking wot

>>34240971
The Germans were more aware of this issue and often stored rounds in armoured lockers, if you knew anything about armoured warfare in this period you would know that

>>34241018

Nope, the entire "selling point" for the superiority of German tanks relies on their supposed advantage in terms of K/D ratio. So unless you can actually prove that this K/D ratio was a real thing, they basically have nothing going for them.

>>34241058
yes the side that fires first wins, especially when your inadequate main armament cant fire on the enemy until you cross another 500m of open ground where you're taking fire from superior enemy guns the entire time... stop trying to own the sherman and revise its history, it was a very decent tank, but the facts are the facts

>>34241073

That's a funny way of admitting that German tanks never had wet stowage.

>>34241018
>the consensus of most historical analysis of this subject is that the Sherman was an under performer given the huge industrial capacity of the Allied powers

Cite your sources.

And if it's Belton Cooper, that's a paddling.

>>34241105

The Sherman was an outstanding tank. Shermans had best survival rates of the war.

>>34241125
>Cite your sources.
he's citing the entirety of world war ii historical analysis. what more sources do you need?

>>34241143

Actual sources.

>>34241163
>i was joking

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>>34241169

>>34241142
crew survival rates don't win engagements

>our tanks blew up so good and we just took out another one

yeah thats sort of what i was getting at, you spout this 'survival rates' bs like its some universal metric that can be compared in a vacuum to other nations tanks in different conditions using different doctrine.

>>34241125
it's not Belton Cooper, i dont have to break down the historiography of the whole damn war to assert that 'good enough' tanks with a wealth of combat and logistical support won the war against German armoured formations.

>>34235866
A lot of good it did them huh

>Be Nazi Germany
>Go to war pre-emptively with lot of Pz I and Pz II.
>They are shit, They know they are shit
>Pre-war started developing Pz III and IV, but untested, you don't really know how big-gunned they should be.
>Pz IV is designed as an infantry-support tank with short 75 mm HE as a prime use
>Pz III is just get their standard 37mm pak slapped on. It's shit really.
>Both got the famous 3-man turret. They are very effective in combat
>Poles have no tanks, Pz III&IV can both be infantry-support. Even Pz II to some extent. Awesome utilization.
>Start fucking around with gross-tractor
>French tanks are super heavy compared to German Tanks
>Pz III is inept as a TD-Tank, try to get the 5cm gun instead. Alot of short-barreled 50mm is built, waste of space. All long barreled 5cm goes to the AT-infantry.
>War with Soviets, face a lot of tanks
>German army has no TD or TD-tanks, start converting Pz IV and fit them with 75cm long guns.
>German army now has no support-tank
>Stugs start to fill the role
>Need more AT/TD, StuGs are converted to TD to fill this role instead.
>Still no infantry support tanks, Stalingrad is a big failure
>Finally start to get Tanks and dedicated TDs that can kill Soviet tanks easier, Ferdinand, Tiger, Panthers.All are a stop-gap really
>They are kinda shit at spearheading, multitasking, holding together for long-offensives. They are used as stationary TD's
>Finally dedicated TD designs start to plop out, Jagdtiger,Jagdpanter,Jagdpanzer IV,
>All armoured gun-vehicles are really kind of a TD, not an all-around Tank.
>Pz III is still shit

>>34241629

Also forgot to add: Before Barbarossa Pz-Div had 2 regiments of tanks. OOB for the invasion, they split the regiments and doubled the number of divisions, reducing division combat-effectiveness. Here more then ever they would of needed a multi role tank.
Imagine if every tank in the barbarossa OOB was Panthers. All Pz III was converted to stugs, and they worked an exclusive role as infanrry support with Pz IV.

>>34234715
Do you know what the word 'indirectly' means?

>>34231677
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZecpHAnX7Q

>>34241105
Gee, average tank engagement range in Normandy was around 600m. I sure hope you aren't insinuating that Shermans had to close to under 100m to kill a Pz IV. That would be mighty stupid of you. And even the Brits were knocking out Tiger Is near Rauray with their 75mm Shermans at ranges well beyond the point blank you insist they had to close to.

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>>34236194
>Poland overall contributed more to the war than France did.
Not even close.
>Below the US, British Empire and USSR, it was Poland that provided the most to the allied effort.
France had the 4th largest army fighting for the allies at the end of the war. Poland at best had just a few divisions.

Fucking Wehraboos, I swear.

>>34230858

The Germans relied heavily on tanks. They would concentrate their armor, punch through the enemy line, roll up the flanks and push deep into enemy territory. Then infantry would come behind and secure the substantial gained territory and prisoners. So, in a sense, the infantry accounted for the majority of the leg work. But their whole strategy hinged on mobile armor.

>>34241258

>crew survival rates don't win engagements

No, they win wars. If your experienced tankers keep dying you're gonna have a hard time.

How was the crewsurvival for the Panzers?
Is it hard to guestimate because so many tanks were abandoned, not killed?

>>34243539

I heard from TV that germans shot bailing enemy tank crews on the battlefield. And I also heard german tankers were afraid of that happening them aswell so they are equiped with grenades and submachineguns

>>34242200
Poland helped Britain in deciphering Enigma

>>34240229
And there you get the 20% casualty rate.

>>34240334
>that broke more often than a Hi Point
Hi Points are known for being robust and reliable, anon...

>>34244629
Both sides shot bailing tank crews, because you never know if they'll eventually return to the bailed vehicle when you're not looking and shoot you when you aren't expecting it.

This is also why experienced tankers keep shooting disabled tanks until they explode or burn, to guarantee it can't be salvaged or use against them.

>>34241629
>Pz IV is designed as an infantry-support tank

>>34248295
It was, so...?

>>34248355
>It was, so...?
nope, sorry

>>34248383

It literally was, Panzer 3 was for anti-armor with it's high velocity 50, and Panzer 4 for infantry support with the low velocity 75.

Then the Panzer 3's 50mm turned out to be inadequate, but there was no way to fit a 75 into the Panzer 3's smaller turret ring. The Panzer 4's larger turret ring allowed it to be up-gunned with the KwK 40 and take up the anti-armor role.

>>34248426
the germans didn't use tanks for infantry support. pz.4 was to support the lighter tanks

>>34248433
You're fucking retarded.

>>34248654
you're saying the germans used their blitzkrieg machines for infantry support and i'm the retarded one? yeah.

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>>34248695

>tanks are not for infantry support

The armament of the early mark PzIVs were 75mm low-velocity cannons meant to lob HE, while the armament of the early mark PzIIIs were 37mm / 50mm medium velocity guns that they used in an antitank role.

So yes, the PzIVs were originally meant to blast the fuck out of emplacements and strongpoints while the PzIIIs dealt with enemy armor. it just so happened that the PzIVs larger turret ring meant that it could be upgraded with heavier guns that the PzIII with its smaller turret ring could not.

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>4 Shermans = 1 Tig-

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>>34248433
>>34248433
>>34248433

>the germans didn't use tanks for infantry support

Nigga what do you think tanks are for?

>>34250054
>Nigga what do you think tanks are for?
yep, the whole revolution in tactics they ushered in involved using tanks just like world war 1. some historical heavyweights here

>>34237645
Because he was a Georgian nigger and also manlet

>>34249871
>point-blank engagements and flanking shots

>>34250082
You're an idiot. Combined arms only works if tanks in concentration support infantry breakthroughs that them allow the tanks to raid soft targets and conduct deep battle.

>>34247251
They shoot them until they blow up, mostly because its hard to tell if the tank is actually disabled. You are kinda looking at it from afar through a scope.

>>34251959
>You're an idiot
try learning some about the pz. iv's development there, general

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>>34252183
Different anon, but the Panzer IV was specifically designed as a support tank, much like an assault gun in its role. In fact, the Panzer IV was Guderian's answer for tank divisions to the problems that von Manstein solved with the concept of assault guns.
The Panzer IV absolutely would have supported the infantry in its actions against hard targets. It might have been a weapon of the armoured units, but tank divisions have infantry in them as well.

Get off war thunder

>>34252306
Is Warthunder still a shit? I haven't played in two years. Got tired of shitty developers and their Russian bias.
Does the D-5 Stuka still not have dive breaks?

>>34235866
Anon you are trying to say a complicated mouse trap is better than a simple one when they both have the same effectiveness.

>>34237569
really not sure if your figure is right, but even say it was, then that's not bad for something that big or expendable(like all war weapons).

>>34234389
>late war metallurgy
That's a meme. German armor quality remained consistent throughout the war. The perceived "decline" was due to the evolution of ammunition outmatching Germany's preferred armoring scheme (hard as possible and then make it harder). The same thing happened in regards to naval armor, with Krupp's "wotan weich" diamond-armor being defeated by the shift to capped projectiles. The downfall of Germany's armor was achieved by the Western Allies using better rounds and the Soviets just sticking naval guns on their tanks.