Which was better in WWII, The German tiger Tank, or the US Sherman?

Which was better?
THe German Tiger



Or The US Sherman Tank?


I Personaly Like The tiger tank, What are your opinions?

Lol somebody post!

The tiger tank outclassed the Sherman in every aspect except speed, I believe.
Had Germany produced it's Koningstiger tanks in greater amounts, they would have easily won the war..
Heck, one Jagdtiger (Or it may have been Jagdpanther) Took out a regiment of British tanks by itself with no resulting damage

Haha of course Tiger. One Tiger could destroy 10 Shermans without any problems. The only one bad thing on Tiger was its high weight and low mobility. Sometimes it was unable to move offroad.
The only one american tank that could stand against Tiger was Pershing (90 mm gun). It was probably the best WWII tank but it was deployed just in the last war year.
Another good tank was Panther G. It was equiped jist with 76mm gun, but this gun was so efective that it was almost equal with 88mm Tiger gun. The Panter was also much more mobile.

[Edited on 28-5-2004 by longbow]

For toughness and killing power the Tiger...

For overall reliabilty the Sherman....

I read a book once stating the Tiger was a deathtrap inside....lots of leaks.

The german tanks of ww2 had a weight problem. they did not travel well in wet and muddy conditions. While in the open and in ideal conditions with no opposing air power, the tiger was unstoppable.

But the Sherman was built for speed and built in numbers, so by sheer numbers on the open battle field the the sherman won by attrition.

The best Tank of WW2 was the russian tank that used a torsion bar or spring suspenion for it drive line to get the power to the ground. It was fast and turned on a dime.

This torsion bar design was tested before the was for the US tank and turned down for some reason, and the design was later sold to the russians for there tanks which were made in the US durring the war.

And now the suspension design is used on the Abrams.

go figure?

American WWII Sherman tanks are not even worthy to talk about...
A better comparison would be T-34 vs Tiger tank.

Fine piece of Soviet equipment:

Soviet T-34 Tank





[Edited on 28-5-2004 by PolskieWojsko]

[Edited on 28-5-2004 by PolskieWojsko]

Tiger tank was horribly expensive to buy and operate so I would choose Sherman over Tiger....but then I would make sure all the Shermans had 17lbs with APDS and AP shots before I went up against Tigers.

T-34/85 could only shoot 2-4 RPM, while the SHerman could do 10-12 rpm, so it was out classed by the SHerman tanks

[Edited on 28-5-2004 by psteel]

Originally posted by SIRR1
But the Sherman was built for speed and built in numbers, so by sheer numbers on the open battle field the the sherman won by attrition.

Yes, that is definitely true. The Sherman was not even in the same class as most of the medium tanks used in WWII. But it's greatest strength was it's sheer numbers.

The kill ratio was around 3:1 in favor of the Germans, but the Allies had so many Shermans and crews that the Germans could not knock them out fast enough.

The Germans used to call the Shermans, "Tommy Cookers" or "Ronsons." Simply because of their tendency to burst into flames after being hit.

Well The Kingtiger was the best in the war!

T34/85 was the best tank of WWII.


seekerof

Originally posted by browha
The tiger tank outclassed the Sherman in every aspect except speed, I believe.
Had Germany produced it's Koningstiger tanks in greater amounts, they would have easily won the war..
Heck, one Jagdtiger (Or it may have been Jagdpanther) Took out a regiment of British tanks by itself with no resulting damage

Germany had no chance of winning the war when the King Tiger was in development. The sheer weight of Russia, America, and the Brits would have still smashed through the King Tiger.

Originally posted by Seekerof
T34/85 was the best tank of WWII.


seekerof

In my opinion it was the Panter G, which was the best tank. It was much more reliable than its previous versions and as I already stated its canon was almost equal with 88 mm tiger gun. It was also very mobile and had better armor than t-34 versions. The only one disadvantage was that it used gas while T-34 used diesel fuel, so if Panter was criticaly hit it could explode, while T-34 was just set into the flames.

The Shermans usually fought against similarly armed Panzer IV as well as infantry. Most of the Panthers and Tigers were on the Eastern front and even if they were available on the Western front they would have been shredded to pieces by the allies superior airpower. Really the Sherman did its job pretty well.

The Panther was definitly the best tank in the war. It was an excellent mixture of armour and firepower and speed.

T-34 I think was only better (than the tiger) in its mobility. those wide tracks gave it considerable advantage in the russian mud and snow.

During WW2 my father and his company was attacked by 20 Tigers and panthers and the infantry that supported them. Needless to say my Fathers unit was decimated and only a handful escaped but my Dad was captured.

I think my Dad would say the Tiger was the best, after all he had a bloody good look at one in action.

Tank for Tank the german armor was vastly superior, most opponents had to work the flank or rear of Tigers and Panthers to overcome them. The 75mm guns of Russian and alied tanks were effective at only dangerously close range. The 88mm guns of the german tanks outranged the enemy by far and penetrated most armor fielded by the allies in WWII, sheer numbers and the absorbtion of high losses by the allies is what prevailed over German armor.

Where the Germans erred is in mass production and logistics. Time after time modifications were made that used different engine and drive train components on relatively low production runs that made it a mechanics nightmare when it came to parts interchangability. Many tanks suffered repairable damage that in other armys would have had the tank back in the field the next day, this was not true for the Germans - many tank losses were due to abandonment during battle when rear areas were overrun, if these tanks had benefitted from mass production methods then its resonable to say more would have taken part in the battles lost and the result may have been different.

Originally posted by rustiswordz
During WW2 my father and his company was attacked by 20 Tigers and panthers and the infantry that supported them. Needless to say my Fathers unit was decimated and only a handful escaped but my Dad was captured.

I think my Dad would say the Tiger was the best, after all he had a bloody good look at one in action.

The Tigers and Panthers are certainly fearsome. I have seen a few in person myself. Tanks are without question the most intimidating things on the battlefield. If you have ever had a tank rumble past you, then you know what I am talking about. Scary indeed.

There was a story about a few Tigers in Normandy that destroyed around 100+ Allied vehicles before being knocked out themselves. I'll try to find a link.


.

Originally posted by Warhappy
Which was better?
THe German Tiger
Or The US Sherman Tank?
I Personaly Like The tiger tank, What are your opinions?

Somebody just watched the Discovery Channel special lol.

Through most of the war 3/4 of the german divisions that fought were leg mobile horse drawn infantry divisions with no armor. by the end of the war only 10% of the divisions were heavy mobile while the rest were infantry divisions with a company of tanks.

Most of the Soviet advances made in the east were due to the fact that the Soviets would throw hundreds of tanks across a front protected with maybe 40-50 Panzers. This mean't they were at best concentrated into two small battalion groups in the rear to attempt counter attacks. Panzer divisions were not designed to fight this way.Germany needed fewer expensive Tiger tanks and many many more 'cookie stamped out' Hetzers for the vast majority of the Infantry divisions. From WHat I understand you could produce something like 6 Hetzers for the cost of one Tiger tank, and given the economy of scale , a full tilt production effort could probably reach 10:1.