[garyscary]

Well, going by superiority in tech is putting it very simply. The different sides had very different logistical/tactical concerns. For example, the SCR-536, which was a man portable radio was a bigger technical feat than any tank or battleship.

You don't think that the US, the leading industrial power at the time, couldn't build better tanks. The Sherman got the job done that they needed it to do.

[zelon88]

Oh no, I absolutely agree that Americans could build good tanks. But good and better are subjective terms. Best-in-class is something that can be quantified. And quantifiably Germany had, in a one-on-one comparison, the best performing tanks. However, benchmarks aren't the real world. The best tank in the hands of an army with no fuel will always fall to a crappy tank at the hands of an army with plenty of fuel. Attrition, cost, complexity, necessity, resource consumption are all factors in the real world. Russia arguably had one of the shittiest tanks, but they were so crude and cheap that they were able to produce an insurmountable number of them. Hitler even raged about this in a rare recorded conversation towards the end of the war when Germany was bleeding out in Russia. Germany got so stuck on quality in the beginning of the war that the allies, with their massive combined industrial might, were able to simply scale their less expensive forces above anything Germany could counter.

[garyscary]

Could you explain in what quantifiable quality German tanks were the best-in-class. You mention performance but German tanks were not the best for mileage, ease of repair or survivability, which make up the holy trinity of tanks: firepower, protection and mobility.

Firepower is also arguable, plenty of Allied tanks could engage German tanks at comparable ranges. For example, after the war, the Soviets tested their tank guns against German ones and concluded that they had similar performance and penetration. Also, in the beginning of the war, the Soviet T-34 and Kv-1 outclassed all German tanks of the early war.