What, in your humble opinion, was the best tank of WWI I?

Question

What leads you to this conclusion? Feel free to give as much information as you would like, as I am always interested in learning about WW I I history.

The answers to this question are awesome.....I do not have any formal knowlegde in this matter, so I am going to defer my judgment to the people by putting this to a vote. Thank you all for your contributions!!

Answer 1

the Russian T-34. U. S. Sherman's were shot to pieces by German tanks. but the T-34 shot the German tanks to pieces at the battle of Kursk.

Answer 2

The T-34 was the best overall tank of WWII. It still used a small Caliber main gun as the American Sherman tank did. The difference was the T34 used High Velocity ammunition that allowed penetration of the German armor. The American Shermans used a low velocity round that bounced off the german armor.

The T-34 also used a diesel engine. The Russian learned the faults of having gasoline engined tanks from the Shermans they had due to Lend Lease.

The T-34 had their fuel tank mounted on the outside of the tank on the engine deck. The Germans soon learned to use air burst artillery to rupture the fuel tanks. The leaking fuel of the lead tanks would coat the ground and then the Germans would use Incendiary rounds to ignite the diesel soaked ground burning the following tanks.

The Germans quickly learned many other tactics to defeat the T-34's. As with the Americans Sherman tanks, shear numbers, made all the difference. The Russians produced huge numbers of T-34's and could absorb the losses and still defeat the German positions. This was the same tactic used by the Americans and British using the Sherman Tanks.

If the Pershing Tank had been in service during D-Day it would be considered the best tank of WWII. It was not introduced until after the Battle of the Bulge and it's lack of numbers didn't let it see much combat. In the few tank on tank battles it had, it easily defeated the German tanks. It had a larger main gun (90mm), ammo designed to defeat tanks, better sighting system and longer firing range than the German tanks.

Answer 3

The best tank in WW II would have to be the Tiger VI. Now I know it wasn't the most reliable, and it was quite a chore to keep up with even the most routine maintenence let alone repairing a thrown track under battle conditions. But no machine struck fear into it's opponents like the Tiger. It's 88mm main gun had twice the range of Allied armor. In the hands of an ambitious commander like Michael Wittmann, it was awesome. Most Tiger losses on the Western Front were caused by Allied Air attacks.
But this is just my opinion.

Answer 4

I have watch the discovery channel's TOP 10, Tanks Planes Warships Submarines etc. The Russian T-34 was recognize as the best tank deployed and used in World War II because of it's mobility (Light)and Armour design (Slope design of its turret) not much of its firepower though. For firepower the German Tiger Tank was recognize for that. Armour wise it was also recognize but was changed after the the deployment of the T-34s. Tiger Tanks were heavily armored that's why its mobility was very much affected. A new German Tank was deployed the Leopard Tank, the Leopard Tank's turret design was copied from the T-34s but its deployment was too late to influence the outcome of the War.

Answer 5

Since you asked best...I would have to go with the German Panzer VI Ausf.E Tiger tank (the original one, not the later Panzer VI Ausf.B King Tiger).

It had a powerful 88mm L56 gun, which while not definitely the most powerful tank gun of the war (the 90mm US M3, the Soviet 122mm and the King Tiger's 88mm L71 were far more powerful), was more than enough to crush all likely opposition including the T-34 and the M4 Sherman at ranges which these tanks could not respond.

Its armor was very effective against the guns of the M4 and the T-34 (75mm or 76mm), only close-in side/rear attacks or more powerful guns like the British 17pdr and the later tank guns could kill them. Of course aircraft would have little problem killing the Tiger, but you can say that no ground unit was or ever will be impregnable against aircraft.

Its mobility and speed was not spectacular (especially when compared to medium tanks), but was nonetheless good for a tank of its size (38km per hour on the road, 25+/-km offroad).

The only flaw yes was its reliability problems, which can in the end be traced to its weight being too heavy for its suspension, its transmission system was too sophisticated resulting in high maintenance.

In closing I would like to end with a few facts for the Tiger's combat record (which also helped me decide on this tank rather than the King Tiger):
There were at least 10 Tiger aces with over 100 kills on their account (formost is Kurt Knispel with 168, more famous is Micheal Wittmann with 138)...

There were reports of certain lone Tiger Is single-handedly holding up Allied and Soviet advances ableit temporarily (Micheal Wittmann did so during the Battle of Villers-Bocage)...

And finally, the average kill ratio for all 1350 Tiger Is built was 10:1, certain units of course exceeded this (noted examples include 13 Kompanie/Panzer-Regiment Grossdeutschland (16.67:1), schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 103 (12.82:1) and schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502 (13.08:1).

Answer 6

I have to go with the King Tiger, produced by Porche for the German Army.

While it was introduced too late in the war (Autumn of 1944) and was fairly complex, resulting in low production numbers, it was the best overall design, albiet a tad slow. To make up for that shortcoming, it had incredible armor, the most powerful gun mounted to a MBT of all combatants and a quick traverse of the main gun.

The Russian T-34 had the biggest impact of the war, due to innovative sloped armor, wonderful engineering, easy field maintanence and vast, vast numbers.

But, head to head, the King Tiger almost always winds up the victor over the T-34, in both the few matchups that actually took place, as well as many simulated encounters.

So, I give you a two option answer:

Biggest impact on the outcome of WWII: T-34

Best overall design in WWII: King Tiger

Answer 7

I was always partial to the German Mark IV tanks i believe it is

The reason for this is due to the fact that earlier models had a blind spot in the rear that was near their escape hatch that was reworked not to happen with the Mark IV's that a bazooka or rocket launcher of that era could not puncture with a rocket and I may be wrong on this (and probably am) but i believe the Mark IV's were also the first tank to feature a primitive version of Laminated Tank Armor today that came really into play about the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in US tanks

It didn't have to be as fast as other tank models as well because the Mark IV's I believe had a bigger turrent gun (125mm i believe) and was heavily armored as a battle tank to sit on a hill and give support to the ground forces

Answer 8

The russian T34 was great but my personal opinion was the German Tiger tank. May not have been the best one but it had a lot of fire power and it did scare americans and the british

Answer 9

Definitely the Russian t-34's. The only tanks that can run in such cold weather, and the only ones that could survive long enough to make a difference. They whooped the panzer divisions Aryan wussy @$$3$.

Answer 10

Yes The Russian tanks. The Germans used to call Sherman tanks "Tommy cookers!"