1. The sherman tank was not small, it was in fact inordinately tall for it's weak armor.
2. The reason the soviets tanks were better is because they had significantly more combat testing as most of the combat was taking place in their backyard whereas we were thousands of miles away.

quote:

Originally posted by Hyperion:
1. The sherman tank was not small, it was in fact inordinately tall for it's weak armor.
They where tall, but not as larg as the Pather and Tiger with all thier variations. Next to the M-26 it was also smaller. not much. They where very tall, like our own M-60 and that presented a nice ride in crew qurters, but left it with a high silhoutte.Nice target picture for all who aimed.
2. The reason the soviets tanks were better is because they had significantly more combat testing as most of the combat was taking place in their backyard whereas we were thousands of miles away.

These where a dependable vehicle, but where soon out gunned towards the end of the war. They, like the Sherman where mass produced in large numbers with relatively few maintance problems. The large tracks with light foot pressure was an excellant cross country vehicle in the bogg areas.

all tanks are simply mobile targets, period. tank on tank battles were not commonplace.

MOBILE TARGETS? Thanks gunny, spoken like a true groundpounder.

1. The T-34 was renouned for low ground pressure with it's wide tracks having them around 9.1 lbs per square inch, better than the sherman.
2. Also the Sherman at 9 or 11 feet tall depending on the model was about as tall as the tiger and panther, but didn't have nearly the armor.

hands down the German Tiger

At the start of WWII, German tanks were all boxed, flat sided type tanks. The Germans were totally surprised when a Russian T-34 came into the field. The T-34 had angled frontal and side armor plating. This concept actually increased the thickness of the armor plate as any round impacting on it that wasn't deflected by the angle of the armor plate, and had to travel through more plating. The Germans quickly realized this and set about creating the refined Panther and Tiger.

The Panther and Tiger's real shortcoming was in the engine area. They used a gas engine (Maybach)that was actually designed for aircraft. It was too lightweight for the job as a tank engine. The engine only put out 700 hp, which when you factored in the weight of the tank to horsepower this came out to 10 hp per ton. (the tank weighed in at 70,000 lbs) The result was the engine being the weak spot on the Panther and Tiger.

Another weakness in both German tanks was the transfer case and gears. They utilized straight gears versus the more efficient tapered gearing. This resulted in uneven loading on the gears and tank crews had limitations imposed on them due to this factor. They were restricted from speeds higher than 18 mph over long periods of time. They had the capability of going faster than 25 mph in spurts, but they risked eating up the transfer case which would essentially cripple the tank out in the field. One had to remove the engine just to get to these gears. This is not something one wants to be doing in the combat zone. Most crews that experienced this type of failure would set off internal charges and destroy the tank in place.

Now which one was the best WWII tank? I dunno, but I would look at which country had the most tanks remaining after the war, the most crews that survived to come up with that answer. The Germans while losing the war, did have alot of superiour equipment in different areas. Thier tanks had the first fully torsion bar suspensions on tanks, and this resulted in more maneuverability. Look closely at the track wheel setup on each type of tank. You'll see the Panther and Tigers had wheels on outside and running on inside. The inside wheels were the ones hooked up to the torsion setup. Shermans had single wheel setup with limited suspension. The British Comet, WWII Challenger was the same. Limited suspension, made for very rough ride and was harder to drive. Our Abrams tanks of today, have adopted a full torsion suspension, and while they are using a turbine engine, the power output is phenominal. What's that manuever called when the body of the tank is rotating in place while the gun tube remains locked on a target? I think its called tranverse steering or something like that?

One thing I'll never get was the Tiger II the line of thought seems to be like this
Engineer one: Let's build a tank that's over 60 tons!
Engineer two: YES, and let's use the same engine that powers a 45 ton tank to do it! (the same engine used in the Panther was used in the tiger II)
Engineer one:...YES wonderful idea!

Tiger 2 isnt even in this discussion and for good reason. Anyone feel like an arguement, come on and try proving me otherwise. And the t34's armor was good enough that the tank drivers would RAM thier tank into tigers/panthers/panzers. I love the sherman, pershing,panther, but the T34 wins hands down

The tiger II or King Tiger would have been a good battle tank if the final drivewas different, tapered gears instead of lineaur and the engine was more powerful. Just my 2c as an extanker. The Soviet T-34 was a good all around tank I agree.

quote:

Soviet T-34

The ruskies had better tactics at Kursk...

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/glantz2/glantz2.asp

Engine or not, the tiger is to overengineered to be mass produced. some 18,000 tigers spread out all across of europe, many out of action blown up already, vs about 54-57,0000 shermans, in a concentrated front, able to outmanuever flank and hit the tigers hard (All very replaceable, easy to repair/maintain). It took 4-6 months to get a "common part" replacement. A tiger commanders tank had a minor breakdown problem during i think D-day and he was out of action to the end of the war. Tiger is good in terms of a bigass gun (which alot of tanks in late war had as good, or better), and armor. Nothing else. As i said, the bigass gun you all love (88mm), there were plenty of tanks (Alot of prototypes or unknown) with equal or better guns. I do believe the list is the IS-2,IS-3, ISU-22/ISU-22s,Su-100,SU-122,SU-152,pershing, M36 tank destroyer,Jagdpanzer VI Jagdtiger,Panzerjäger Elefant Sd.Kfz.184. So many tanks. The tiger wasnt as unique as you thuoght.

O and.. question why was the leap from a 75mm cannon to a 76mm seem like such a big difference? 75mms a peashooter but a 76mms a tank killer with just 1mm difference>?

the main difference between a 75 mm round and the 76mm round wasn't only the 1 mm in size. It was the barrel that its fired from. The 75mm round was typically fired from a short barrel, whereas the 76mm was from a much longer barrel, which dramtically increased its effectiveness.

That's why the 75 in the Panther with the high velocity round had such penitrating power.The Sherman was a great tank, but didn't have the survivablity that some of the other AMV had. The simplicity of it and the T-34, along with the numbers produced, did everything to the Allied armies overwelm the Axis.
The upgraded gun to 90 mm on the M-4 Sherman later in the war gave it a harder hit, but was still vunerable target without added armor protection, or sloped Armor like the T-34, Panther or Tiger 2.

Germanys best tank probably was the panzer 4s, since the reason they were so good was thier tactics, which revolved around outmanuevering and concentrating thier forces to achieve a break through. Tigers (and possibly panthers). I dont think the tigers would have been that useful in blitzkrieg tactics where time and speed is essential.

tigers and panthers probably where a waste of resources'

The way they were actually built, definately. The Mark V with a higher caliper and velocity gun would have been right up trhere with the M-4 Sherman and T-34

Majority were built in factories with slave labor. The resulting sabotage had a real effect on operations.

germans made their tanks so that they would last a liftime (just like VW) with cartridge bearings and v'd cogs and crazy high tolerances but thing of it was it took longer and needed way more resources and they're engineers just wouldn't think of making a tank that was somewhat disposable *cough* sherman *cough*

and gunny's right all the design in the world could never make up for poor assembly


and i know this is off topicish but the germans did make a damn fine assault gun (tank killer)

I hear the allies had an anti aircraft weapon that could equal the 88mm but they never used it