Top Ten Tanks

[Jumbo]

Hi Fellas,

I like the T-34 choice primarily because of it's inovative design for the time, And the fact it was the main tank for the Russians that was instrumental for helping them defeat the Germans in the largest armored warfare front of all time. Many nice features and some poor features. It's nice features more than made up for it's poor features. The Sherman deserves a slightly better ranking IMO. Keeping in mind that the Sherman wasn't initially designed to engage other tanks. Rather it was an infantry support tank. In that roll it really was outstanding if one were to look at all the Sherman variants and what rolls they performed. The Sherman was a tank designed to win a war and not neccassarily win any individual tank on tank duels. If a Sherman was put out of action as they often were. It more than most any tank known to me, Could be repaired or recieve canibilized parts from another KO'd or disabled Sherman in relatively short period of time compared to most any other tank of it's time. It's simple and strait forward design allowed for that. And the Allied armies took full advantage of that feature. On the flip side. Most German designs like the Tiger and Panther for example were fine machines in working order. But in warfare taking all kinds of damage is something that should really be considered. A Tiger or Panther would take an incredibly longer time to repair for common issues like transmission or boogie repair/replacement. Most other designs were far to complex and over engineered for the time when a tanks life expectancy was just months, weeks or even days. The Russians themselves truely liked the M4A2(76) they recieved and issued them to their Guards divisions. The quality of the Shermans armor was of better quality and far less prone to spalling than found on the T-34. The T-34's armor layout and profile were better however. As for the U.S. 76mm gun. The Russians even said it out performed their own 85mm gun found on the T-34 against armored targets. The Sherman was a bit better of a tank than most people are led to believe.