Any Documentary with the Hollywood flavour I dont watch...

-narrated by some deep trailer voice
-too much CGI that replaces footage
-re-enacting scenes, then I go watch a movie if I want to see that kind of stuff.

HunterICX

Thanks for the elaboration on the topic. Tank combat had never been a priority on my list, though it is a highly fascinating subject.

I stopped taking these "patriotic" documentaries seriously for a looooooong time already. These imported shows usually are aired in the middle of the night on second rate channels over here. They do have some entertainment value, though.

I thought it was a great injustice that the Tiger was not featured on the Military Channel's "Top Ten Tanks", which I just saw last night. I mean, for God's sake, the Sherman and the Centurion were in the top ten. Even the 15-ton failure that is the M551 Sheridan made it. The S-tank made the list despite not strictly being a tank at all!

The Tiger, I or II, should have been included if for no other reason than being the most intimidating tank of WW2. The best tank ace in the world, Wittman, commanded a Tiger. For that matter, if they're going to include turretless vehicles like the S-tank, the Jagdpanther and the Stug III should have been in there as well. I found the whole thing to be a complete mockumentation by someone completely unfamiliar with the philosophy of good tank design.

Oh well, at least the Leopard 2 and the Panther made it.

True, but these US comparison shows are odd anyways. In one, the Sherman made first as the best tank of WW2 place because it's ease of production and logistics. You just gotta bend the criteria until it fits your design.

For some reason me thinks the tankers inside these would reconsider such judgement when facing a Tiger or Panther.

I suppose that would depend on whether you asked the one Sherman crew that survived or the four that were killed. As proud as I am of my American heritage, I am ashamed when I look back at the way our military threw so many hundreds of thousands of lives away in the World Wars. D-Day and the ensuing battles were little more than a side-show compared to the Eastern Front, and even in Korea and Vietnam the U.S. military failed to provide a significantly advanced tactical doctrine or equipment to our troops. Only in the years since we adopted German-style tactics and equipment (early 80's) have we developed a war machine that rivals the efficiency of the Germans in the last century and a half.
Even then, with the war on terror, we insisted upon fighting the last war, woefully underprepared despite the lessons we learned from the British and the Soviets during their occupations of those regeions.

If German martial tradition has one claim to fame, it is that German military thinkers have been among the most effective and progressive of any in the world. German generals and strategists, collectively, are unequaled by any other nation in modern history. When I report to my unit for duty, I don a modern woodland digital-camouflage pattern that is directly derived from late 44' Waffen SS camouflage. I wear a helmet that is patterned after the German design of 1915, albeit made of Kevlar. My weapon is a machine gun that is a direct descendant of the MG42, the M240G. The weapons of my comrades owe their design to the MP44, the M16A2, with a few American innovations:D . Our combined-arms doctrine was purchased at the cost of untold thousands of American lives on the Western Front. And that's to say nothing of Germany's contributions to jet, submarine, and rocket weapons.

The proof is in the pudding, so to speak, I suppose. Even if certain "documentaries" of questionable worth pervade our media, the truth is evident in the machines, methods, and tactics we employ.

I watched the documentary, the Sherman was tenth, the Panther was fifth, and the T-34 was second.

The Panther was in a completely different class from the Shermans and T-34s. They didn't make enough to make a difference.

When you say the the Western Front was a sideshow, yes it was smaller in scale. But the main reason for it was that Stalin wasn't the most trustworthy of allies. Had there not been a Western Front, Stalin may have made a separate peace, or gone through all of Europe, leaving only Britain as a "Western" nation.

*COUGH*
Though you are probably right, I am not sure if to take that as a compliment or with a shudder. There is this saying over here, stating "Death is a master from Germany". And Death is what war and all the tools and machines are for, after all. So I am kinda torn between this realisation and the ages old fascination for war in general, within which Germay indeed has a place.

It all boils down to accepting war as natural human behaviour that can't be avoided and thus propperly recognized or fight it in the name of idealism and the hope of improving humankind.

Anyways, so much to the philosophical aspect of this. I wholeheartly agree to your assessment of the T34. It was a nasty surprise for the Germans in Russia and was very influential in the development of the Panther, which is considered to be the first modern concept MBT by some.

I also agree to the short sightness of the american leadership, namely Patton, who did not see the need for the by then available Pershing, instead putting his money on the Sherman. Though not a bad tank per se, intended to fight in combination with infantry and tank destroyers, the old phrase "no plan survives enemy contact" became too true for the Ronson. Especially if "enemy contact" was defined by "heavy tanks".

But I suppose every army has a lesson to learn here and there. For the germans this lesson was the T34. For the western allies it was the Panther and Tiger.

The Germans did have some very quality weapons but not all of them were superior to their allied counterparts. Compare the bolt action Mauser to the Semi-auto Garand or the B17 or B29 to the He111 or Do17, The Stuka to the Sturmovik, even lowely "deuce and a half" to the Opel truck, never mind in naval technology, there are lots of areas where the Allies were just as good or better than what what the Germans fielded.

Well, a more fair comparison between for the B29 would be the amerika bomber concepts and the He177. The B29 nevertheless and undoubtly is the pinnacle of WW2 era level bombers and was way ahead of any german design at that time. That aside it simply is a beautiful design.

The Stuka and the IL2 don't really fit either. The equivalent to the IL2 would be the Hs129. The IL2's main advantage was it's quantity, not nessecarily it's qualitites. They were shot down en masse. I do not think the russians employed a dedicated one engine dive bomber. The japanese Val and the american Dauntless and Helldiver are the only directly comparable aircraft coming to my mind.

A field where the allies really were way ahead of the germans were Radar technology (Magnetron) and code breaking. The naval field in general is debateable, Radar and tactics were the US biggest assets in this area (aside pure quantity), though US carriers were the best in the world without a doubt.

Well, don't forget about the FG 42, the Kar. 43 and Stg 44;).

The designs were there, they were just not fielded in large enough numbers.

Besides as Bewolf already pointed out the HE111, Do17 and JU 87 are pre war designs (o.k. so is the B17) but comparing them to the B29 is a bit unfair isn't it?;) Btw. the He111 and Do 17 were designed for accuracy not for spreading tons of bombs from 30,000+ feet.:know:

Fair enough. So how about the B-25 Mitchell as a comparison to the Heinkel and Dornier then? Better defenses, slightly faster, carried a lot more bombs and had a lot longer range.

And comparing the stats of the Dauntless vs the Stuka i'd say the Allies had the better aircraft in that category as well.

My point is though that while Germany did have some really innovative weapon designs as did the Allies, neither side should claim an overall superiority.

Unless one side has an atom bomb.

The Dauntless wasn't really faster than a Stuka (at least not as the contemporary D version), less stable in a dive and could carry less ordonance.
It was carrier capable, which accounted for this lesser performance, but from all dive bombers really used in WW2, the Stuka was the best, except maybe for the Ju 88 when used as a dive bomber.
Problem was that dive bombers simply didn't fare too well against fighters.
The Vultee Vengeance was maybe the best dive bomber but it was used so rarely it hardly matters.
Real comparisons for the Do 17 and the He 111 would be the B-18 Bolo and the Martin Bomber, both not exactly stellar performers.
Contemporaries of the B-25/B-26 would be the Do-217 and the Ju 188, both excellent aircraft.
Problem with german bombers was simply that from 1942 on there was no way german twin engine bombers could be usefully employed anywhere in daylight due to allied superiority in numbers, not only in numbers of planes, but also in numbers of well trained pilots.