Thread on tanks. Why is the Panther not the best tank of WWII, and why is the Sherman so much better. To follow.

First: Disclosure. I am not a "tank expert". I am a guy who has been around a lot of tank experts. I've been through the wringer many times on the "tank subject" and figured I'd shitpost a little on a subject I think I know pretty well. That's what this is worth, enjoy!

The Panzer V Panther quite possibly the most hyped tank of WWII. It embodies a combination of gun, armor, and mobility that has been considered the holy grail of tank design for decades. Thus, it is often dubbed the "best tank of WWII", to the applause of legions of enthusiasts.

Beyond the gun, armor, and engine, what's truly fascinating about the Panther is how and why it doesn't live up to the hype, and what that says about armored fighting vehicles and how people think about them. It's true that the "triad" of gun, armor, and mobility is

considered essential in professional circles, but that approach is also extremely reductionist. It does a disservice to the layman in that it abstracts the tank as a product of those three factors. Effectively, it makes the tank into a little 3D box, with an armor stat,

a gun stat, and a mobility stat. In this highly abstracted form, the Panther scores very well. Its gun is powerful, its maximum armor extremely thick, and its mobility (on paper) is excellent. But all of this falls apart, both the model and the Panther, when you begin to

understand AFVs not as abstracted units, but as *actual* systems that MEN must fight in and with. The Panther suffers from its lack of ready rack. Its recoil recuperators do not allow sustained rapid fire. Its engine compartment has no drainage, and oil and fuel pool inside it.

The turret traverse is not powerful enough to rotate the turret when the tank is on a modest grade. The ammunition is stored in the sponsons, where the armor is thin, and very vulnerable to hit. The mantlet is vulnerable to hits from guns that the glacis is immune to.

Situational awareness is poor because although the commander's vision is excellent, the rest of the crew effectively cannot see out of the tank. There is also no commander-gunner handoff, which means target engagement is very slow.

Reliability and durability were poor throughout the Panther's life. Final drives lasted 150km, even in postwar French service. They had straight cut gears, not herringbone gears like the Sherman. Servicing the transmission required removing it, which required removing the driver

and radio operator positions. The engine had a poor lifespan of 1500km. Numerous issues like these plagued the tank, and German accounts tore into the Panther as a disaster. Guderian called it "our problem child". Now, to be fair, the Panther was not like the famous Valiant tank

which was used to demonstrate "how not to design a tank" to young British engineers. But in some ways they share similarities. Like the Valiant, the Panther falls down on "soft" flaws, that only come out when fighting in one. Unlike the Valiant, the Panther would be a compelling

tank otherwise. But its combat record speaks for itself. During the Battle of Arracourt, American Shermans - inferior in gun, armor, and mobility - decimated the German Panthers using their superior engagement time and by exploiting the weaknesses of the Panther.

The Americans leveraged tactics (such as taking advantage of fog) and other elements, but ultimately 75mm M4s went toe to toe with the Panther and won. Decisively. Postwar analysts have asked why - and determined that perhaps the biggest factor in tank battle is time to engage.

Here, the Panther was at a severe disadvantage. It had no sophisticated targeting system. The gunner was afforded only a magnified optic, there was no target handoff system, no TC override, and no unity periscope with which the gunner could easily acquire the target.

The Sherman on the other hand, despite having inferior gunnery optics, had a far superior system for situational awareness and target acquisition. The gunner was afforded a unity periscope where he could precisely acquire and track targets with the TC's input.

The gun was stabilized, which did not at the time allow shoot on the move capability, but which meant the gun was far closer to being laid correctly during engagement and directly after a movement was conducted. And every member of the crew was given a periscope, giving excellent

situational awareness. The Sherman's loader, in contrast to the Panther's, acted as an extra set of eyes and ears to complement the Commander, especially in his blind spot. This sort of thing doesn't show up on paper, but it meant the Sherman would often get the first

acquisition, the first hit, and the first kill. Since Panthers were so much slower to acquire, and since they had so much poorer situational awareness, this meant often Shermans just took the Panther unawares. And the Panther was not immune to the Sherman, either.

Even the M3 75mm armed Sherman had a shot at defeating the Panther frontally, albeit by bouncing a round off the bottom of the mantlet. But if you catch a crew unaware and get the chance to make several good hits, maybe that's not so far-fetched.

The 76mm Sherman was downright cozy in penetration. Yes it stood no chance against the Panther's much vaunted glacis (unless the slaves who made it had decided not to heat treat it that day), but the 76mm M1 had enough penetration even with steel shot to go through the mantlet

of the Panther at a normal striking angle. Off angle shots would be less favorable, but being off-angle was unfavorable for the Panther as well, as that could expose their extremely thin side armor. 76mm HVAP, however, which became available in the late war, made mincemeat

of the Panther's turret. And sadly for the Germans, their armor was not always up to snuff and was often overhardened, resulting in huge cracks or fractures, even from 75mm HE, and total defeat of the plate when it should have been solid.

So to wrap it back up, what makes the Sherman great, and why is the Panther not all its cracked up to be? Fightability. The Sherman is the tank from WWII that you would want to fight in. It's comfortable, well-engineered, reliable, durable, and safe (w/ advent of wet ammo racks)

The Panther maximizes the triad, and has a great cupola, but it's unreliable, fragile, can't be run hard, and fights the crew in combat every step of the way. They can't see, can't engage, and can't maintain their vehicle effectively. What I've mentioned here is just the surface.

The Panther really was a nightmare for the Germans and Americans alike, it's a unique and fascinating tank, and helps illuminate what makes AFVs special, that they are platforms within which people fight, and that is their first and foremost job!