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German equipment was fine, there just wasn't enough of it. I'm at odds with the recommendation by Guderian to forget newer models of tanks and just focus on mass production of Panzer IV's, but that prolly fits into what you're saying about mass producing cheaper models. OF COURSE the Tiger II was better, it just was too late coming to have any great relevance to the war. The flat panels of the Tiger I offends my common sense, but the fact was that it was an extremely good tank. Sloped armor wasn't everything after all. The Tiger I was a heavy and could kill a Panther with ease. Even after they upgraded the Panther, its still a heavy vs a medium. It was the Tiger and its tendency to see direct hits just bounce off of it that terrified so many allied tankers.
The highest scoring tank ace of all-time (to the best of my knownledge) was Michael Wittman. His insane kill total started out in a Panzer IV, but his best performances were in his Tiger I. Here's a good link about him: http://www.panzerace.net/main/pz6tiger.asp |
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Quote:
The Tiger 2 in theory was a better tank than the Tiger 1 but in reality it was woefully underpowered and underengineered - it still had reliability problems and never should have been released to front line units when it was. If it had been given an uprated engine and more development time it would have been a devastating tank in combat. As far as I'm aware the Germans had engine failures for 2 reasons. (1) because they had not been designed to cope with the -40 degree Celcius temperatures of the Russian winter and (2) because they were in tank designs like the Panther, Ferdinand, Tiger 2 that had been rushed to the front when they clearly were not ready. |
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This is just a little comment:
The Panther was built as a direct counterforce to the T-34, so much so that when the Wehrmacht generals came to inspect two prototypes they found one which was almost identical to the T-34. They decided on the other design which is Panther as we know it today only on the basis of fear of friendly fire that's how much they looked the same. And yes Germans did have better armor core. Be it tactics or equipment. @shadowalker the reason for so many models is because the Germans knew they were outnumbered and thus had to rely completely on their technical superiority. ie "this model will be the best" and so on... |
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