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Panzer is a German word that is an abbreviation for ‘’panzerkampfwagen’(’’armored fighting wagon or vehicle). The T-34 tank is probably the best tank of WW2 as far as it’s speed, ease of production, the fact that it was the first tank to employ sloped frontal armor to increase deflection and it had a wide track base for better traction.(Ironically it was designed by an America Walter Christie but the US Army wasn’t interested in it.) The Sherman was a piece of junk. Read Captain Belton Coopers book ‘’Death Traps’’ in which he excoriates the Sherman and it’s poor design. It was a gasoline powered tank the Germans called ‘’The Ronson Tank’’ after the Ronson cigarette lighters slogan ‘’Lights up on the first stroke!’One well placed German tank round and the Sherman was toast. With out a doubt the German Mark V Panther tank was a superb tank with a high velocity 75mm gun with a muzzle velocity of 1,120 fps. And of course the dreaded Mark VI Tiger Tank with it’s 88mm. that could destroy any Allied tank on the battlefield and was protected by up to four inches of armor plate was the M1 Abrahms of it’s day. And given to the Prussian tendency to over-build there was the Tiger 2 “Konigstiger’’ or King Tiger. A massive 70 ton brute with up to six inches of armor plate and a long barreled 88mm main gun tapered to increase it’s muzzle velocity to 1,130 fps. There is simply no doubt the German Army of WW2 had the most superb tanks and armored vehicles of any army at the time.

The Soviets figured out early on that tanks had a pretty short life-expectancy and thus threw the T-34’s together as fast as they could. I don’t think the Germans, with their meticulous standards, could ever come around to that way of thinking. So while the German tanks were certainly amazing specimens, 1 German supertank could not beat 4 or 5 quickly and cheaply produced “good enough” Soviet tanks.

the dreaded Mark VI Tiger Tank with it’s 88mm. that could destroy any Allied tank on the battlefield and was protected by up to four inches of armor plate was the M1 Abrahms of it’s day. And given to the Prussian tendency to over-build there was the Tiger 2 “Konigstiger’’ or King Tiger. A massive 70 ton brute with up to six inches of armor plate and a long barreled 88mm main gun tapered to increase it’s muzzle velocity to 1,130 fps. There is simply no doubt the German Army of WW2 had the most superb tanks and armored vehicles of any army at the time.

True, but only part of the truth. “The rest of the story” is that Tiger and King Tiger tanks were difficult/expensive to produce, and were mechanically unreliable.
My uncle was a Sherman tanker. He noted the maneuverability of the German tanks, which could turn in place by reversing one tread while forwarding the other. What he didn’t know, that the French learned in using German tanks operationally after WWII, was that actually using that capability made the tank even less mechanically reliable.
It was Hitler himself who was infatuated with size in tanks; he committed significant resources to the development of the “mouse” - a monster tank even compared to the King Tiger which never went into production. And which would have been dangerous to cross most bridges in. Bridge carrying capacity was an issue with the King Tiger as well.
The cost/producibility issue was expressed by a German tanker who said that the Tiger was ten times better, but there were usually eleven Shermans to contend with. Not exactly comforting if you are in the ninth Sherman, tho . . .
The other issue with the huge tank was its high target value for aircraft - that probably was enough to make the “mouse” impractical in its own right.