TA152 welcome to the forums.

Not to get too technical on your question. Basically, it all comes down to everyone having their own idea about what a tank should have and look like.

The Russians had good tank designers, and good aircraft designers too. So did the US, British and Germans etc.

The British used American tanks because the US had the manufacturing ability to produce tanks as quickly as cars. The British didn't.

Same goes for the Russian aircraft industry. At the beginning, the Russians needed aircraft badly so they accepted planes from the US. Later on they had their own unique aircraft (IL-2's, Yaks etc.).

You've just got to remember, although they were all fighting the same enemy, they were still different countries, with different ideoligies and different ways of looking at the same problem.

Hey, if they all used the same designs, half of these forum pages would be blank.

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"Get us tanks! Without them this magnificent force will be ruined!" Col. Phelps to gen. Steiner, Commander 5th SS 'Viking' Division, 1941.

"They're acting as if they'd won the war already, sir."
"We're going to prove them wrong."
Corporal Bobby Woll to Lt. Michel Wittmann, 12th SS Panzer Division, June 1944.