Best Tank of World War II

[Gauntlet]

Originally Posted by Cap.Miller

The best tank of WW2 is clearly the Tiger.
He destroyed most other tanks.
Of course you can say that later build tanks are better like the KingTiger on the german side or the IS-2.
But for it's time and that was a long one the Tiger dominated every tank.
And if you say that the Sherman was the best because if he was destroyed 20 others came... that just says that the shermans died like flies against the Tigers.

Are you kidding me? The PzKpw VI E Tiger I was NOT the best tank of WW2. It was too heavy, too unreliable, and it was very expensive.

The better tank of WW2 must be the PzKpw V G Panther!

[Relander]

I agree with Gauntlet: the best tank of WW II in tactical level, in the battlefield, was Pzkw V "Panther" which succesfully combined weaponry, armour protection and mobility.

But in the strategic level, when we took into account the fuel consumption, production costs, maintenance etc, Soviet T-34/85 wins definately.

[donren123]

i think that there was many ww2 tanks that were good. German tanks were very well build in quality but not many were build because it was a very complex structure unlike the american sherman that wasnt very powerful but it was build in the thousands. The russians t-34 also was built in large numbers. But i think the german tanks if built in numbers can destroy the us and russian tanks with there tiger tanks.

[Roaming East]

The Tiger? Tank warfare is invariably maneuver warfare and the Tiger was ill equipped for that. Which is why the panther supplanted it to begin with.

[Anlushac11]

The T-34 was not without its problems.

The early models had horrible transmissions, had steering problems, and most did not have radio's early in the war.

The later T-34 mass produced models were riddled with numerous production defects. The armor was notoriously brittle, interviews with Russian tankers said that when hit one guy might die due to actually being hit while rest of crew would be injured due to spalling. By comparison Russian Sherman veterans applauded the Sherman's armor which when penetrated had very little spalling.

The T-34's steel tracks with non rubber bushed track pins and non rubber padded tracks made the T-34 noisy to the point that the Germans said they always heard T-34's long before they ever saw them. Due to wear the T-34's often had to stop and adjust the tracks about every 500 miles, It is not uncommon to see T-34 pics with various amounts of track slack on top. . By comparison Shermans had rubber bushed track pins. German veterans said Shermans could often get as close as 300m before being heard which reduced response time. Sherman tracks also were rubber padded on both sides and reversible so when one side wore down you flipped the track over and ran til the other side wore down.

When the T-34 first came out there was nothing like it as far as mobility, armor protection, and a lethal gun.

By 1943 all those advantages had been countered. The sloped armor was no longer thick enough to afford adequate protection and the 76.2mm gun was no longer adequate to penetrate the upgraded and new Axis armor.

The T-34/85 offered a better gun but was now nose heavy and hard to steer and lost alot of its reputation for cross country mobility. The new turret no longer had the well sloped sides and thus lost much of its armor protection. Attempts to up armor the T-34's with welded on panels was done but this again decreased mobility, speed, and reliability.

The only thing the T-34 offered after 1943 that was ease of production.

The Tiger I was well armored, well armed, and was not any slower on road than most of its contemporaries and actually had excellent cross country mobility due to its interleaved road wheels and wide battle tracks.

The Panther offered everything the Tiger did but weighed 11 tons less, cost less to produce, and was easier to manufacture. The Panthers main drawback was too thin side armor and the turret's curved glacis plate problem which was fixed in later G models.

The Tiger II was a excellent design that should have never been built.

Imagine a "what if" if Germany had built the Panther instead of the Tiger I and given the Panther the quality control and super high quality steel armor. Instead of Tiger II's and JagdTiger's imagine all those resources poured into maximizing Panther output.

There is a reason Panther's existed in various Military's into the late 1950's.

[Roaming East]

Tigers biggest drawback was always the turret traverse speed. especially in closer in fighting seen on the Western Front. Somewhat diminished by the ambush style fighting though i suppose.

[MrFancypants]

The Panther is probably the best tank of WW2, but it was developed as a counter to the T-34, so it isn't really surprising that it performed better. It also suffered from a few mechanical problems due to its hastened development.

I'd say overall the T-34 was better because it was available earlier and far superior to other medium tanks for quite a while and produced in insane numbers. The Sherman also belongs somewhere in the top 3 for the same reason.

[Anlushac11]

Originally Posted by Roaming East

Tigers biggest drawback was always the turret traverse speed. especially in closer in fighting seen on the Western Front. Somewhat diminished by the ambush style fighting though i suppose.

The turret traverse speed ceased being a problem for the most part when Tiger crews figured out that since the Tiger was as wide as it was long it could pivot in place with ease. You turned the tank and zeroed in with the gun. The Tiger I ausf E could pivot faster than most tanks could rotate their turret.

Tank aces like Michael Wittman who used to command a StuG III which required the vehicle to pivot used the Tiger I's pivot ability to lethal effect.

The Tiger I was expensive, did require maintenance, and was too heavy to be used on most European and Russian bridges but you have to admit it was a effective fighting machine.

There was a reason Tiger's were usually allocated to elite or veteran units and always rushed to the forefront of the fighting.

I do agree the Panther was best, just wished it had gotten the attention to quality and crew training the Tiger I did.

Ironically the Iosef Stalin II weighed about 46 tons, very similar to the Panther and US M26 Pershing.