> Not a single panzer in the list? I guess the Krauts really built good tanks <
Well, if a German tank is needed for the list, I’d nominate the very impractical Maus (“Mouse”). It was an enormous, underpowered tank, so heavy it wouldn’t have been able to cross most bridges. And it had no secondary armament to keep enemy infantry at bay.
The Maus is a great example of how the Germans wasted time, money, and resources chasing dreams. Meanwhile, the Soviets were building thousands and thousands of T-34s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_VIII_Maus
Germans sure liked over-sized but impractical weapons, didn’t they? How much time and money did they waste on the Gustav rail gun, for example.
One of the great fictions is the propaganda that the Germans were super-efficient. This is pure horsecrap. The Nazi Party was horribly corrupt and its cadre of officials interfered constantly with the workaday economy and the military. Even the Italians were using mass production methods while the Germans still custom built so much of their gear. Tanks trucks and planes sat stranded by the basket load. “Wonder weapons” like the ME262 or the King Tiger or V2s could never be built in sufficient numbers. German fuel supplies were never adequate after attacking Russia.
Wars are not won by brilliance. They are lost by blundering incompetence. And the Germans and Japanese blundered far more than the Allies.
The Germans attacking Russia and the Japanese attacking the USA were both fatal blunders. Neither has a snowballs chance of succeeding.
I remember in the 1970s, a wargaming magazine had an article comparing different tanks, their strengths and weaknesses. For weaknesses of the Maus they had "Small mammals that eat the eggs?"
A lot of German tank development after the blitzkrieg years seemed to have been based on "We have a really big gun. Let's just put tracks under it and get it out the door." Mobility, visibility, reliability, production and operational efficiency and all that were secondary.