Best Panzer

[JDR]

The Mk IV gets my vote, the workhorse of the Panzerwaffe, in service throughout the war, reliable and deadly.

got my vote for the same reason

[Pug42]

Whilst I agree that if resources had been concentrated on PzIV production then the army would have had many more good tanks at its disposal, the Panther is for me a better all-round tank, its 75mm of a much harder hitting power than that on the Pz IV. No accident that the French ran a division of Panthers after the war (they had first dibs so to speak) and the Pz IVs went to the Middle East.

Panther wins over Pz IV because:

1) Better Armament
2) Better ballistic shape to deflect incoming
3) Lower ground pressure due to wider tracks
4) Capable of being upgunned, whereas PzIV was by then at its limit.

Good thread though and interesting to see what people think. Don't include things like Marders in this myself as limited traverse and poor crew protection...

[Gunter]

Panzer IV H. Very adaptable tank.

[The Sorrow]

Do any of you guys own any of these???

[stefan]

The Tiger
Iconic, saw service on all fronts,not perfect but

excellent fire power ,excellent protection ,adequate maneoverability

not unlike a chieftain

Panther good
MK 4 too small in my opinion
King Tiger never enough to go around and a bit on the heavy side

[missyd]

Do any of you guys own any of these???

No. But I have free access to a Panzer 38 (t), Swiss Hetzer, T34/85 and King Tiger (and many others)because I am a member of the swiss army museum society.

[Hoffman Grink]

Like Daniella I have free access to a number of Military Vehicles........

People don't believe me when I try to describe it so I'll let your ead what someone else who recently visited said...
http://www.militarymodelling.com/news/a ... AN=132&v=1

[missyd]

Spoke with the owner of the WC collection a few weeks ago ...

[The Sorrow]

Cool

[Wolfie]

Panzer IV. I like Tigers and King Tigers, but I just can't get over the design of the P IV.

[Franz repper]

The sorrow wrote

Do any of you guys own any of these???

Like the Good Fwbl Grinch and Daniella I have free access to lots of nice Military Vehicles ,some of them are very rare .
missyd wrote

Spoke with the owner of the WC collection a few weeks ago ...

Why would you want to speak with some one who collects Water closets (WC)?

[Heinz]

Panzer IV gets my vote. Panther and Tiger were too fragile for the abuse they got (and lets not even mention how underpowered the Tiger was as well!)

[spindlerss]

Panzer IV without doubt. Very simple design and easily produced on-mass. Limitation was it's weaker 75mm cannon. If they had concentrated on developing and evolving the design of this vehicle would they have come up with a suitable machine that could have been mass produced and dominated the battlefields?

Tigers, Panthers, King Tigers all excellent tanks in their own individual rights but with serious design flaws - the over complicated torsion bar suspension, interlocking wheels, good but underpowered engines that barely coped with the vehicle weight and transmissions that failed, poor access for general maintenance that required the whole turret to be removed (to replace the transmission) etc. This coupled with the overall weights made them unsuitable for the current transport system (railways) and they had a tendency to collapse the smaller bridges which in turn leads to major detours or more work for the suffering pioneers, generally under shellfire.

Mark IV gets my vote with the Panther coming a very close 2nd. Just imagine waht could have been if the war lasted longer and they managed to iron out all the problems with production (other than allied bombings) and reliability.

[panzerschreck]

This is my Favorit Tank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voMkbSes460

1:1 Repro made in Germany

[Pug42]

Best tank? They usually work better with wheels...