IronStar: Meh I don't really count failarmy tanks as real ones. French had best tanks at the beginning of WW2 and managed to do nothing with that. They weren't produced nor used enough to make any difference.
AlKim: Which doesn't mean some of the designs were rather good, at least on paper. I believe the Germans captured a fat load of them, but their combat performance went largely unrecorded; I suppose they were mostly stationed in occupied non-combat territories.
Indeed, the Germans actually had issues with the French tanks during the few encounters that they had with them in sufficient numbers for it to really matter. It is theorized that had the French actually used their tanks in a proper way, and not just scattered them through the infantry as support vehicles, they might have slowed down the German advance enough for their army to be able to mount a proper counter offence.
IronStar: Panther was vastly superior to Russian designs of the time, even though it was based on t34 as it.was designed not to be destroyed in less than two weeks of service. I don't think they continued producing pz3 at the time Panther was massproduced.
AlKim: I agree that the Panther was vastle superior to the T-34 and probably remained so throughout the war, but it did have a few disadvantages related to external factors. For instance, it was more expensive (not that Germany would've won even if it wasn't) and it ran on petrol, which created logistical difficulties. The Panzer III was produced alongside the Panther, although not for very long. I think the IV was built throughout the war, though.
Yes, the Panzer IV was built through the entire war, and also after it. The Panzer IV was a very successful tank, that combined a relative ease of production with versatility and a chassis that was easy to modify. Just look at the amount of Panzer IV-based designs that was used during WW2
The Panther was probably the single best combat vehicle during the entire second world war. It was fast, reliable, had a good gun, sloped armour, surprisingly cheap to produce and it was not as much of a fuel hog as many later designs. It has been theorized that had the Germans stopped at the Panther, and just focused on producing versions of it, they might actually have won the war. Luckily they did not, and instead wasted a lot of resources on tanks that were a lot worse. The Tiger might have been a big and imposing beast, but its lack of sloped armour, mechanical issues (that were had to fix in the field) and thirst for fuel made it a burden for the German army. A well placed Tiger was still something that the allied army feared (even words of it being a Tiger in the field had a negative effect on the moral of the allied soldiers), but in the end, it would probably have been better for the Germans if it had never been made.
IronStar: Maus was logistically disaster, and probably most idiotic design that was ever made, as even if they managed to make more than two, it would get bombed to death by aviation the very moment they spotted it. Situation is even worse for (thankfully never made) rat.
AlKim: It's a hilariously impractical thing. Large areas of the deck are covered with grilles that are just begging for an artillery strike or a 250kg bomb. It also chugs petrol at the rate of about 2000l/100km (0,14 mpg for you Brits and 0,12 mpg for Americans) or about the same as four Tigers. The mere thought that the Germans ever though of wasting resources at something like that makes me facepalm. The smaller E-100 wasn't that great either.
It did make the allies spend resources on creating a counter though. The T28 Super Heavy Self-propelled Gun was designed with the Maus in mind. It never did see combat though.
langurmonkey: You sound like I should know that the Tiger I was an unstoppable killing machine but it wasn't. I also read the Tiger I broke down a lot.
AlKim: Heavy tanks in general are more unreliable than light ones because of the high stress their mechanical components have to take, and the Tiger was no exception. The Tiger's wheel design (
seriously, look at it) let mud and ice to build between the wheels, potentially jamming the drivetrain. Imagine trying to access one of the rearmost wheels for service: you'd have to strip a load of wheels off three bars before you could even get to whatever it was you were doing, then stick all the removed ones back in place.
Not only that, but the Tiger had an engine that tended to break down. It was severely underpowered for such a huge vehicle. While later Tigers got some of its issues fixed, it never got its complete overhaul that it really needed.
