[BengalTiger]

Well some people are simply convinced that Germany had the best tanks, planes, rifles, self propelled and towed artillery guns, tactics, U-boats, secret weapons and even battleships during WW-II.
Now the problem is just proving that they're wrong (except for the SG44, the Me-262 and late war subs).

[NGTM-1R]

TAke a closer look at the picture...the force of the blast is moving the ship SIDEWAYS.

Holy ****z, I'd hate to be on the recieveing end!

Common misconception. Let's try again from another angle. Note the wake.

[IceFire]

Well some people are simply convinced that Germany had the best tanks, planes, rifles, self propelled and towed artillery guns, tactics, U-boats, secret weapons and even battleships during WW-II.
Now the problem is just proving that they're wrong (except for the SG44, the Me-262 and late war subs).

The problem with "best" that those people don't realize is that you really can't be the best at everything.  Germany had some of the "best" tanks in terms of protection and firepower but they were much more difficult to mass produce and some of them were ponderous beyond all realistic expectations.  You could argue that the Sherman tank was the best of WWII simply because it was easy to produce huge quantities of them and they were reasonably mobile.

I think its easy to argue that they didn't have the best anything because in WWII everyone had a generally even playing field technology wise and pretty much every weapon of WWII was a compromise in one aspect to achieve another.

[TrashMan]

TAke a closer look at the picture...the force of the blast is moving the ship SIDEWAYS.

Holy ****z, I'd hate to be on the recieveing end!

Common misconception. Let's try again from another angle. Note the wake.

No misconception. The ship really does move slighly sideways from the force.

[Desert Tyrant]

TAke a closer look at the picture...the force of the blast is moving the ship SIDEWAYS.

Holy ****z, I'd hate to be on the recieveing end!

Common misconception. Let's try again from another angle. Note the wake.

Lovely view.

Well some people are simply convinced that Germany had the best tanks, planes, rifles, self propelled and towed artillery guns, tactics, U-boats, secret weapons and even battleships during WW-II.
Now the problem is just proving that they're wrong (except for the SG44, the Me-262 and late war subs).

The problem with "best" that those people don't realize is that you really can't be the best at everything.  Germany had some of the "best" tanks in terms of protection and firepower but they were much more difficult to mass produce and some of them were ponderous beyond all realistic expectations.

Indeed.  The Panther was nearly as heavy as a heavy tank, and the King Tiger weighed a staggering 69 tonnes.  The German tanks also had a problem with, y'know, overengineered to hell.

 

You could argue that the Sherman tank was the best of WWII simply because it was easy to produce huge quantities of them and they were reasonably mobile.

Sherman gets a very unfair amount of drumming.  The later war models 76mm gun was quite good at taking Panser III and IVs.  (IIRC the US produced a staggering 52,000 Shermans during the war.)

The Sherman was a good, no-frills AFv.  So much so that the Israelis upgraded them to have 105mm guns in the 60s.
I

[NGTM-1R]

No misconception. The ship really does move slighly sideways from the force.

LOOK AT THE WAKE.

's straight.

[TrashMan]

Previous picture dude...TI's clearly moving sideways (slightly)

[wdarkk]

Immagine a headshot with that!

In the immortal words of Grizzly (JA2): "Man, that's gotta hurt...But then again, maby not!"

Um... A human hit by a 16in shell would either be turned into ****ing goo or be vapourised. 

Anyways, i've been thinking about Bismarck and KGV again.  The thing i've been wondering is: What the hell did the Germans spend their tonnage on Bismarck on?  The King George V was no less than 6,500 tons lighter, and almost actually as much as 9,000.  (KGV weighed 35,000 tons, Bismarck weiged 41- 44,000 tons.)  But yet the KGV had thicker armour generally, and was operationally only a know slower than Bismarck.  IIRC the only real complaint about KGV was that the armanant was weaker than comtempararies.  (KGV's 14in were definately inferior to, say, the 16/45, 16/50, and 18/45.  KGV's guns were roughly on par with the Kongo-class Battleship.)

So what did the Germans, yet again, spend an additional 6,500  to 9,000 tons on?  The armour was generally inferior to KGV, and the Bismarck's gun were roughly on-par with the KGV, and IIRC the KGV's AA wasn't weaker.(10 14in vs. 8 fifteens)

So... what.  (Also, as an aside, I'd rather have the KGVs than the Bismarcks... Heavier armour, and the fact that as far as BBs went KGV was actually cheap.  The US built two North Carolinas, the French built two Reichlius, the Germans two Bismarcks... but the British built five of the KGVs, only one, the ill-fated Prince of Wales, was ever sunk.)

Forget secondaries, I'd be a good 90% of that extra weight was fuel. Bismark could go about 3x as far as a KGV on single fill-up. http://www.combinedfleet.com/b_oper.htm

EDIT: Although secondaries might have been a bit more, http://www.combinedfleet.com/b_second.htm shows Bismark as having about double the secondary firepower.

[NGTM-1R]

Previous picture dude...TI's clearly moving sideways (slightly)

It's the overpressure from the guns firing, it creates an effect in the water that makes it appear as though the ship actually moved sideways and generated waves in the process, but since you insist on persisting in the error, Navweps has WHOLE PAGE devoted to proving you wrong.

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-022.htm

And, once more, with feeling, LOOK AT THE WAKE. Perfectly straight. If anything the ship would appear to have moved towards the direction it was firing in both pictures.

[TrashMan]

Well waddayaknow...you learn something new each day

[Kosh]

You could argue that the Sherman tank was the best of WWII simply because it was easy to produce huge quantities of them and they were reasonably mobile.

The T-34 was just as simple, and was mass produced an about the same numbers, but was much better design. The Sherman was really tall for a medium tank, so it was effectively a big target. Also the Sherman had terrible cross country performance because it's treads were too narrow, so the amount of pressure it put on the ground was actually greater than the Tiger 1's. It was still way better than its predecessor, which really was crap.

[IceFire]

Yep could have mentioned the T-34 as well which was a very smart design.  Particularly the sloped armor.

[Mars]

Well some people are simply convinced that Germany had the best tanks, planes, rifles, self propelled and towed artillery guns, tactics, U-boats, secret weapons and even battleships during WW-II.
Now the problem is just proving that they're wrong (except for the SG44, the Me-262 and late war subs).

The Panthers were definitely better than the Shermans
EDIT:

Oh **** didn't read all the replies sorry!

[IceFire]

Yep...better on a one to one level but theres more to it than that.  As you probably read

[Mars]

Yup.

Wikipedia says that the Sherman guns were upgraded but the History channel has said the opposite, which is correct?

[NGTM-1R]

A Sherman with the high-velocity 76mm gun (they did indeed upgrade them, though it was not always consistant; some fought to the end of the war with their original guns) was a capable enough tank for most purposes; it would not take a Tiger, but neither would the T-34. The Panther could penetrate armor better, but the Panther had the ridiculously long-barreled 75mm/L70 with the muzzle velocity to beat almost anything. Still, one on one, a Sherman/76 would have had a fighting chance against a Panther and better-than-even odds against the Panzer IV. And the Sherman was subjected to continous upgrades; the M3E8 version with improved frontal armor could shrug off an 88mm/L70 hit at a thousand yards, something no version of the T-34 that ever went into combat could claim.

To say nothing of the Brit variations on the Sherman mounting the superb 17-pounder antitank gun, which could take a Tiger. The VC Firefly was probably the best medium tank the Western Allies produced. If there had ever been an M3E8 with the 17-pounder then it would have been the best Allied medium tank period.

[Desert Tyrant]

Yup.

Wikipedia says that the Sherman guns were upgraded but the History channel has said the opposite, which is correct?

Actuall history is.  Post-WW2 had some Shermans upgraded to Sherman Firefly, which was a Sherman varient that mounted the 105mm cannon, which was in service with the Israeli defense force until the 70s.  Most Shermans had their gun upgraded to HV 76mm from 75mm.  The Sherman definately couldn't kill a King Tiger, barring Firefly upgrade, but it could very well put a hurting on one and it could very badly damage to mission-kill a Panther.  It definately could kill a late-war Panzer IV.

The Sherman was a good tank, hell, a damn good tank, it's just always presented against the heavy-hitters like the Tiger and Panther.  It was still a very capable tank in it's own right.

[Admiral Nelson]

The Israeli Sherman was known as Super Sherman, not Firefly.

It is worth pointing out the existence of the Pershing, a tank in the same weight class as the Panther.  This vehicle was the father of post war American tanks such as the Patton, and was certainly a match for the Panther.

Pershing blasts Panther.

Had the war lasted much longer, the Germans would be facing Centurions with their Panthers -- OUCH!

[Desert Tyrant]

I knew about the Pershing, just that they weren't exactly as common as the Sherman was.  Although I could sworn that the Pershing was the eqivilant of the Tiger    Thanks for the correction on the Sherman.

[Wanderer]

If we are totally honest the main good quality of Sherman was the ease of manufacturing. It was very tall tank making it a rather easy target. The early versions often burst into flames even from a minor hits - earning many not so admiring nicknames... like 'Tommycooker' or 'Ronson' - though i guess that is still better than the nick Lee/Grant had... 'coffin for seven comrades'. As the US didn't equip Shermans with 90 mm AT gun or with British 17 pounder but instead selected 75/76 mm guns the tank was hopelessly out classed against Mk V and Mk VI panzers. IIRC in one document it was mentioned that standard US tactic was to put 4 to 5 Shermans against a single Panther or Tiger in order to beat it - with losing only 2 or 3 of the attackers.

Shermans' saving grace when going against Mk V or VI was the sheer amount of Shermans - allies could well afford to lose a handful of Shermans for each Panther/Tiger as those tanks remained rather rare.