You should look at these rough ideas agian with regards to velocity. You might not have realised it but Doubling velocity gives a fourfold increase in kinetic energy.
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Interesring link about T-34 - NOT the best tank in the war?
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1.25*1.25=1.56 != 2
There's also the issue that a larger projectile impacts over a larger area. I dont think that's a simple matter of surface area however.
There's also the air resistance factor.
Or the part where larger projectiles require larger, bulkier propellants.
Sorry I had realised my error and deleted that part before I saw your post
Of course what that video doesn't show is how a panther would perform if it was getting the kind of maintenance it would get in a war instead of in a peacetime depot, 10 years after the war when they had plenty of times to replace any parts that impaired performance. And for some reason I can't fathom it shows the Sherman with a post-war oversized gun but without the famous easy-eight suspension which Super Shermans generally had. So it's a Sherman with worse offroading then any Sherman during the war and a Panther with better offroading then any Panther during the war.
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Oh my bad, I forgot to mention that the Panther is in top condition while all the others are not...
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Oh my bad, I forgot to mention that the Panther is in top condition while all the others are not...
I didn't say that. But the Panther was famous for never being in top condition. The Sherman was famous for always being in top condition. So how about you hold the sarcasm and accept an outside point?
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Because it's not a post-war oversize gun, that's totally a Sherman Vc Firefly.
On the other hand, it also doesn't have the duckbill track extension that you can see on pictures of Fireflies in 1944-45, which would significantly reduce ground pressure. And its A57 engine weighs 5200lb compared to the 1200lb R975 radial or the (more powerful) 1400lb GAA V8. IIRC, that makes it the heaviest Sherman variant that wasn't the Jumbo, so comparing it on the narrowest tracks to other tanks is a little ridiculous.
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Oh, that explains it. I was staring at it and seeing that is wasn't a 75 and wasn't a 76 and assuming it was some other american gun without even considering a British gun.
But that is something that is about the condition of the German industry rather than the tank itself.
People are discussing only the tanks themselves, not the industrial capacity to maintain those tanks top notch.
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Yes it is a good idea to seperate the countries situation on the quality of the tanks.
If Germany had been building Shermans would sherman be a worse tank?
If Germany had been building Shermans would sherman be a worse tank?
Sure, problems with German industry were part. Bad design was also part.
It would probably have some problems but it wouldn't have problems like the Panther. And if the US had built Panther tigers to spec they wouldn't have run like Shermans.
Than the problems of the German industry should be filtered out and only scrutinise the tank about it`s design flaws ?
The name of the thread is best tank, not best industry ...
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Yeah, that's a good standard. Please put it in action. Just keep in mind it should be "problems with industry" not "industry failing to deliver things that weren't possible until post-war".
It's impossible to separate design and industry. The industry was was much "component" of the tank as anything else. Many design decisions are influenced by the industrial situation.
Example: Many Soviet aircraft were built from a wood-based composite. Not because because it was ideal, but because it was the only material suitable for a mass-produced aircraft with an the existing industry facilities and materials.
The US was the only only country in the war with very few limitations in all of the below:
1. Industrial facilities
2. Skilled workforce for production
3. Material abundance.
Everyone else had to make some sort of compromise.
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Yeah, I remember reading Jacques Littlefield's take on the Panther he was restoring, he took the final drive gears to be checked by a metallurgist to see if they were just crap steel. Turns out, nope, the materials were fine, you just physically cannot move a 45 ton tank with straight cut spur gears of that width. If you want compact final drives that can handle that power, you're looking for something like planetary (Tiger I) or herringbone (Tiger II, Sherman). It didn't help that the final drive housing was made of such thin steel that it often deformed under the torque.
Not to mention that it's not like they couldn't have put an electric or electrohydraulic turret traverse mechanism to fix the problem where power traverse in the Panther was proportional to engine RPM.
And, y'know, where do you stop? The LCT-5 and 6 were as wide and long as they could be limited by the size of the very small yards that made them. Which allowed them to carry 5 Shermans, two columns of two, with one in the front. In some sense, the width and length of the Sherman was limited by industrial constraints. Note that the wider and longer Pershing couldn't fit either side by side or front to back, so the same LCTs could carry one or maybe two Pershings. Not so great for assault landings.
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Larger volume inside the barrel would probably reduce pressure, requiring more powder to bring it back up to speed.
I personally think that a lot of people downplay the disadvantages of the T-34, the 2-man turret and lack of radio would be crippling in practice, allowing competing units to service many targets (with a smile!) in the time it takes a T-34 to service one. You can compare gun vs. armor and try to make a judgement based on that, but if the opposing commander never sees you tank because he's buttoned up with poor optics and trying to do 2 jobs at once then it doesn't matter how good his gun or armor are, you can just sidle up alongside them and pop them in the flank.
The question of the "Best", as pointed out by some other people, is really hard to nail down as none of them were really designed to the same specs. Lots of people talking about the Sherman like to compare it to the Tiger, which is obviously problematic because the Tiger is definitely a heavy tank, so it's like comparing a B-17 to a Stuka and saying "Look the B-17 has more guns and a bigger bombload!" The T-34 is the best tank for operating in Russia, the Soviet tankers liked the Sherman except that it's narrow tracks didn't do well in the mud. The Panther is the best tank produced for killing T-34s, sadly it's not the best tank for being produced in sufficient numbers to kill T-34s. The Sherman is the best tank for pumping out a fuckton of highly adaptable tanks that are good enough to be serviceable in combat in pretty much every respect. It's very rare for a clearcut winner to show itself in military equipment as there's ALWAYS tradeoffs that are chosen in the design process, so for a design to come out that's notably closer to perfect than any other isn't likely.
In the end I think it's pretty clear that the T-34 is overhyped and the Sherman is unjustly derided, if I had to choose from the Panther, Sherman or T-34 to be the heart of my military Id choose the Sherman, not because I think it's godly, but because it's failings are relatively minor and if I'm starting from scratch I can give it the Easy 8 suspension and 76mm gun from the beginning, making it a much better tank than the average M4 in WW2 and likely placing it at or above it's peers in overall capability.
The question of the "Best", as pointed out by some other people, is really hard to nail down as none of them were really designed to the same specs. Lots of people talking about the Sherman like to compare it to the Tiger, which is obviously problematic because the Tiger is definitely a heavy tank, so it's like comparing a B-17 to a Stuka and saying "Look the B-17 has more guns and a bigger bombload!" The T-34 is the best tank for operating in Russia, the Soviet tankers liked the Sherman except that it's narrow tracks didn't do well in the mud. The Panther is the best tank produced for killing T-34s, sadly it's not the best tank for being produced in sufficient numbers to kill T-34s. The Sherman is the best tank for pumping out a fuckton of highly adaptable tanks that are good enough to be serviceable in combat in pretty much every respect. It's very rare for a clearcut winner to show itself in military equipment as there's ALWAYS tradeoffs that are chosen in the design process, so for a design to come out that's notably closer to perfect than any other isn't likely.
In the end I think it's pretty clear that the T-34 is overhyped and the Sherman is unjustly derided, if I had to choose from the Panther, Sherman or T-34 to be the heart of my military Id choose the Sherman, not because I think it's godly, but because it's failings are relatively minor and if I'm starting from scratch I can give it the Easy 8 suspension and 76mm gun from the beginning, making it a much better tank than the average M4 in WW2 and likely placing it at or above it's peers in overall capability.
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Than if it`s impossible to separate industry the thread needs to be closed because the answer was posted at the beginning of the thread.
Soviet and US tanks might have have built Shermans and T-34s that were 45% cheaper than a Panther but the Allies and Soviets needed a 4 to 1 or even 6 to 1 ratio in tanks to win against the Germans so even if we the lower ratio the Soviets and Allies spent at the very least 2 dollars for every dollar spent by Germany.
Panther and Panzer IV the best from an economic point of view.
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4:1 kill ratios are pure fiction. Any ratio more than 2:1 would mean that the Soviets, would run out of tanks in 1943. And the allies won every single major armor engagement against the Germans, even when the Germans had the numerical advantage.
From an economic point of view the Panther was a complete disaster. The most cost-effective German vehicle was the StuG III,
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Yet the tanks produced by USA and USSR were way over 4 times the tanks produced by Germany.
Even at a 2 for 1 the Panther is better because a Panther was 45% more expansive that means that a Panther is 10% cheaper than 2 T-34s.
2, 4 or 6 vs 1 it doesn`t matter, the German tanks are still more economically viable.
But if the Allies and Soviets achieved rates under 2 vs 1 why did they produced like 4 or 5 times more tanks than the Germans ? For giggles ?
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