Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth.
~George Washington

What a great and intelligent man, an excellent quote, thanks

I think the key elements to the best tank are traverse rate, reliability, mobility, armor protection and penetration not forgetting the ability to stave off infantry and intimidation.

I will give you an example with the Tiger. From a veteran aquaintence, His AT teams set up in Afrika near Kassarine and awaited in ambush. With a loud roar, along came a furniture van with a telephone pole hanging out of the front(a Tiger) the first team lost their nerve and fired their 57mm too early and caught the Panzer crews attention. They received no fire but were promptly run over by the Tiger without a shot fired. Hoping to get in their licks, the second crew opened up and were sprayed with an angry MG42, killing all. Seeing the situation hopeless the remaing crew withdrew for the hopeful protection of an M-10 stationed back up the road a piece.

This guy was one tough character he was using a backhoe with precision well into his 80s when I met him....both he and the Tiger got away.

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Coir a glaive

Nemo me impune lacessit

Unfourtantely, you are right.. but I'd say its my favourite tank.
Somehow that really defines the word "Tank" for me.

A big old monster with a huge gun. Haha.

I think all tanks are the top tanks of the war. If it was there, it would be there for a reason. Not all of the reasons where justified, but then war is never really meant to be justice.

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Time is only enemy you'll never get rid of.

Tikilal-I just went on Google Images!!!!

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Sure... just bust out the google card.

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Service

Someone asked...Where are the statistics ?
Field Marshal General Guenther von Kluge, in a letter to der Fuhrer....

"In the face of total enemy superiority we can adopt no tactics to compensate for the annihilating power of air except to retire from the battlefield."

"The enemies air superiority has a very grave effect on our movements. There's simply no answer to it."....Rommel

Http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil...rpower1950.htm

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There's one way to find out if a man is honest-ask him. If he says "Yes", you know he's a crook. Groucho Marx

i do not know the exact order but for sure the T-34 first, followed by King Tiger and Tiger and then Panther. M4 sherman (5th( and Matilda (6) Then i do not know

No
1.T34
2.Tiger I
3.Sherman M4
4.Panther
5.Pz IV
6.KV1 (single ones could stop a german advance)
7.Firefly 17pdr
8.Jadgtiger(haha biggest is best)
9.Hetzer (I just love that little one, even with its flaws)
10.STuG(I know the last two are not exactly classed as tanks but SP guns but I disagree and think they are tanks)

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For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for the want of a shoe the horse was lost, for the want of a horse the rider was lost, for the want of a rider the battle was lost, For want of a battle the kingdom was lost, and all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Robert,

Some Sturmtiger footage:

YouTube - STURMTIGER - RARE FILMING IN ACTION!! (with audio)

YouTube - Sturmmörser Tiger

tom

Not necessarily true. Properly crewed, this particular vehicle was perfectly capable of destroying any German vehicle it faced.

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I agree with you here. In terms of the Sherman, as with all long service armored vehicles, there were many variants and improvements. Comparing a short barrelled 75mm M4 to an M4A3E8 is silly.

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And don't forget the "Firefly". If only more of these had been converted!!

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I believe a .50 cal round through the engine grill or air intake would be sufficient to "kill" a Tiger.

Yes indeed I agree.
Huge differences throughout the war in one type of tank(s).
The "Top" was everyones soft spot. A half inch thick (if not open)(mesh or thin plating atop half-tracks/armored cars/some (home-job) TDs, on "most" types ?
Ammo types are significant also, availability, distribution, effect, and type of target. Crew quality/training, Commanders, mission type.
So many little things that mean so much
Molotov Cocktails, WP, even smoke grenades (on intakes) work well too. Aircraft with a 50 cal (or bigger) can ruin your day.
A tough question to ask/answer, unless one defines a "specific" day, for tomorrow....the answer may be different.
As pilots say..."It only takes one (damn near anything)(Seagulls included) in the right spot, (The Golden BB) to take you out."
No matter what you have.

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There's one way to find out if a man is honest-ask him. If he says "Yes", you know he's a crook. Groucho Marx

Easily the best tank of the early war, the only tank to serve in every theatre and the only tank to serve throughout the war practically unmodified. How it doesn't make everybody's list of best tanks evah is beyond me.

Just as slow, less armour, same maingun. The Valentine wasn't strictly a follow-on to the Matilda II, it was a stop-gap offered by Vickers at a time when it looked like we'd need every tank we could lay our hands on.


Good-looking death traps.

The Challenger wasn't a converted Crom, it was an entirely new tank using many of the same parts as a Crom.

The Challenger was a Cromwell hull with the turret of the TOG 2.
Though, the hull was widened and lengthened a bit.

Just asking for a Panzershrek/Panzerfoust. Remember the coaxel MG was removed to make room for the gun and the Hull MG was removed to make room for extra 17 pdr shells. And the 17pdr fired a poor HE shell. And not to mention the exceedingly cramped turret.

This has got me thinking. The Cromwell was comparable to the Sherman, and you said this about the Sherman;
Youre sort of contradicting yourself here mate, a better statement would have been this;
Meh. But what do I know.

Almost all Allied tanks worked well against Japan.

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i remember guderian writing that the panzer III was the most important tank in his group. his ideal team would be german-made t-34s supported by p-IIIs.

Although it's quite similar, the Challenger's turret is far more sophisticated than the TOG 2's.

The Firefly only lost the hull MG, it retained it's co-ax. Challenger crews are on record as saying that they prefer the Challenger: it was faster and more maneouverable. Not sure where you're getting the bit about a poor HE shell for the 17pdr from, it's not something I've ever heard about it.

I think you got at least one of your (my) qoutes mixed up. That referring to Sherman's in the hands of the Russians.

I was trying to say they did not get the least desirable of the Sherman models.

And, if you read accounts by US and Brit tankers, Shermans properly crewed and properly led could (and did) destroy Tigers and Panthers.

Top Ten tanks:

1. T-34/85
2. Panther
3. Panzer IV
4. Tiger
5. KV-1
6. Comet
7. IS-2
8. M26
9. Sherman Firefly
10. T-34/76

The Sherman should not be even close to making anyone's top ten list. Although it was reliable and easy to produce it had many other flaws, such as:
1. Weak Armor
2. Wear Gun (compared to German tanks)
3. Extremely flammable

Furthermore, heavy German tanks such as the King Tiger, which had an excellent gun and good armor protection, were difficult and expensive to produce and were prone to breakdown.

I'd be interested to see your comparison of the T34/85 and M4A3E8(wet); or between the T34/76 and an M4A1 Sherman.

Here goes...probably could use some changes here and there...

1. T-34
2. Panther
3. M4 Sherman
4. Tiger
5. Panzer III
6. Panzer IV
7. Matilda II
8. Sherman Firefly
9. KV-1
10. King Tiger

I know the King Tiger had many issues, but I had to throw it in there just because it looks so impressive on paper .

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The T-34/85 still outclasses the M4A3E8. First of all the T-34/85 had superior armor which was made even better by the fact that it was sloped so much. The T-34/85 also went faster than the M4A3E8 by about 8 MPH. Plus the T-34 had the larger gun.

As for the T-34/76 and the M4A1, it comes down to similar things such as the T-34/76 having armor which is more slopped and a more powerful 76mm gun. There is also the fact that the M4A1 was very flammable.

As a side note, I would advise you to go to historychannel.com which has the Sherman featured on one of its episodes of engineering disasters.

Also, Ceraphix the Panzer III may have been important to the Germans in their early advances but that was just because there were no better tanks to fight against. It had weak armor on 50mm at most (on the Panzer II AUSF N) and most of the time the ones they were using carried only a 50mm gun (Panzer III AUSF J)

Let's see:

Armor:

---------T34/76-----T34/85-----M4A1-----M4A3E8
h front......95.............102............76....... ....102
h side.......65...............51............45...... .......51
tur front....68...............85............84........ ....76
tur side.....65...............51............51........ ....51

Gun
500 yds....71...............111...........131......... .91
1000 yds..61................102...........110.........7 6

The Sherman is also far more reliable and maintainable than a T34. It has a far higher crew efficency and layout. The engineering of the vehicle and the production quality is much higher too.
As for the "flammable" thing; this is true only of the earlier models where the ammunition proved insufficently protected. The "wet" versions of the Sherman were one of the least prone to suffer catastrophic explosions of any tank of the war.

The armor figures shown are for the armor including slope. Note, that the actual hull front armor on a Sherman is thicker than on a T34. The greater slope of the T34 makes up for this to an extent.
As for mobility, the T34 is superior tactically. Operationally, the M4 is much better. A T34 could not make a road march of hundreds of miles without suffering serious mechanical failures. One in particular is the short track life due to the use of a single end loose pin arrangement for the track links.

And, if you get your history from television; you are not getting history right.

I have no clue as to where you got that information about the armor of those tanks. I cannot find those numbers in any of my books or on any online sites. Here is what I have:

T-34/76 .............T-34/85................M4A1
20 front hull.........100 front.hull.......25.4 front hull
52 front turret.......90 front turret.....50.8 front turret

Also, I don't know what you are talking about with the Sherman being more reliable than the T-34.

Plus, I was not basing my whole argument around the fact that History Channel has the Sherman as one of its engineering disasters, I was simply saying that was there opinion. I also see no problem in using the History Channel as a source.

I have read one at least 2 occassions that the hull design for the Sherman was inspired by that of the French Souma. There seems to be an emphasis for tanks designed and produced/modified during the last years of the war. This is only natural, as the best came last after years of combat trial and errors. However, for it's day (early war), I would have definately placed the Souma in the top 3.