Thanks for the kind words about my father..he recently had to move into a nursing home because of mobility issues, but his mind remains very sharp; it’s a blessing to have a parent enjoy the long, full life that he has enjoyed.
You are spot-on in your observations about the Germans; they have always produced some of the finest armored vehicles in the world, a trend that continued through the Leopard II MBT. But the German Army of World War II was not prepared for a war of attrition and logistics. The combat value of a Panther or even a Tiger was greatly reduced when a mechanical breakdown or moderate combat damage could take them out of the fight for good.
By comparison, some of the most heavily-damaged Shermans were repaired and sent back to the front. My Dad told me one of the first jobs in restoring a damaged M4 was cleaning up the crew compartment and giving it a new coat of paint. The bodies of dead or wounded crew members were usually gone by the time my father (and other retriever crews) arrived on the scene, but there was often a lot of dried blood and other body parts left inside. So, the crew compartment had to be hosed out and given a fresh coat of white paint, which also covered the smell from Shermans that had burned.
Sad, isn’t it? That America, the world leader in the automotive industry at the time, could only produce a tank that for the few pluses it did have overall was not a very good armored vehicle in the final analysis.
The Sherman M-4 tank was called the 'Ronson lighter' because would light up every time it was hit.