best tank and fighter in ww2?

magick

well ill go with the panther and me 262

coyote6

I think you're right but the P51 wasn't too shabby either. I've always thought for sheer terror on the ground the Stuka had to be it. Kinda' reminds me of an A-10 in concept.

The rumble of an ME262 is quite a sound.

As for armor: it's still hard to fathom how the Sherman ever made it through the war.

Manic Moran

it's still hard to fathom how the Sherman ever made it through the war.

Easy: It ran, it kept running, and it was easily transportable across the Atlantic. (To include being light enough that the cranes at the docks could lift it: A problem that the Germans and Russians didn't have)

Belton Cooper's book 'Death Traps' advocated that while Detroit could have been geared up to produce M-26s in time for the Normandy invasion, the idea was scuppered by Patton, who saw in a heavier tank something which was probably slower, used more fuel, and was less maneuverable, all of which were traits which he, as a cavalryman, considered horrible liabilities. What was worse was that the M-26 was actually more maneuverable than a Sherman, due to the wider tracks, but he didn't realise it. Just how accurate Cooper's claim is has been subject of some debate.

Something to remember is that Shermans were still killing top-of-the line MBTs in 1967 and 1973, in their upgraded Israeli variants. The M50 had a 75mm cannon basically taken from the Panther, and the M51 had a French 105mm. I'm certainly not going to claim that the Sherman as fielded in 1944 was the best tank of the war, but it did have great potential which was unrealised for many years.

My vote for best tank goes to the T-34/85. Whilst on a 1-for-1 basis probably not as good as a late model Panther, it was well armoured, highly maneuverable, extremely rugged, well armed, easy to produce, and had a much more comfortable turret than its earlier predecessors.

If you really want to get technical, Centurion was a WWII tank, but the war was over before the early production models found anyone to shoot at. Cent is probably the best tank ever made, hands down.

As for fighters, I think the P-39 Aircobra is highly underrated. A little unstable/unforgiving to new pilots, but if given to someone who knew what they were doing, was a great low-altitude fighter. The massive armament, bubble canopy, tricycle landing gear made it a favourite of the Russian fighter aces.

NTM

RapierX

mustang and t-34

tallus

I agree with RapierX
The P51 was the fastest prop driven plane as far as I know. It also had a good range which enabled it to fly bomber escort in WWII. The Pilots who flew P51's always gave it glowing tributes which speaks volumes.
T34 - Sloping front armour the Germans copied that. Cheap to manufacture, uncomplicated and easy to get spares for.
I have to admit that the Tiger was my favourite tank though, looked great, heavily armoured, nice big '88 gun, though I'd hate to be paying the fuel bill, or repairing one.

tallus

Excellent Post Manic Moran ! as always.
I wish I had your knowledge.
I love WWII stuff more than any other war, always found it facinating.

coyote6

Well said Manic Moran!

mike65

Best or most effective?

The Hawker Hurricane and the B29 get that award jointly! One saved Britain the other ended the war.

Mike.

coyote6

Hey Manic, if you ever get near Fort Knox, KY you need to check out the Patton Armor Museum. It's fantastic. While there go up to Louisville and check out the weapon museum and if you feeling totally un-pc (which I am), and it's the first weekend of April or October go a few miles to Knob Creek for the big machine gun shoot! (check it out on the web).

Manic Moran

coyote6 wrote:

Hey Manic, if you ever get near Fort Knox, KY you need to check out the Patton Armor Museum. It's fantastic.

Being a US Army tanker, I'm quite familiar with Ft Knox... And its dirt/clay/weather

If you thought Patton Museum was good, you are evidently blissfully ignorant of some of the other collections out there. The Military Vehicle Technology Foundation in California beats it hands down, as does the Royal Armoured Corps museum in Bovington, England. I've not yet been to the one in Moscow, but I'm reliably informed they have the best WWII collection in the world, period. Bovington is pretty good on WWII and fantastic for pre-WWII. MVTF has a few assets dating from WWI, and a bunch from WWII, but is primarily a post WWII collection.

Aberdeen, Maryland is where you want to go to see a large artillery collection and a bunch of the prototype US tanks which never entered service. Unfortunately, open air display has not been kind to those pieces.

NTM

Dyr

The hurricane? It was outclassed at the time of the battle of britain by the emil and the dora, i'd say factors other than the hurricane won the BOB

And the B29 aint much of a dogfighter

If the question is the best overall fighter of world war 2 in terms of individual performance it would have to be the me262 ( if it didnt keep blowing up lol) Im pretty sure if you asked most pilots of that era what they would have least liked to face in an evenly matched dog fight it would be the 262

the La-7 would be up there too i think

If it's overall performance or contribution you're looking at it has to be the bf109 series, it was designed in the mid 30s and the model held it's own right to the end against more type's of fighters than any other fighter had faced

question: would the mosquito fall under the category of a fighter?

for tanks, I dunno but the panther seemed to be the one that the russians feared the most

coyote6

Moran, Thanks for the tip on the place in CA. I get out to LA / SB sometimes. My bro was a Capt. in the 4th ID and did basic at Knox. He went to Fort Carson, CO where he was a tank cmmdr. on M1A2's. Now he's in the Air Force in Civ. Eng. He's been lucky so far...buliding stuff in the caribbean and soon hawaii. But he goes to Iraq in January.

Manic Moran

Iraq's not that bad. 90% of the country is quiet, and as an engineer, he's not going to be sent out into hotspots. If he goes 'outside the wire', into the country, he's one of the lucky ones. Too many American servicemen spend their entire tour without going outside and meeting the locals even once. Not their fault, just their jobs don't call for it.

NTM

magick

hey Manic Moran, im currently in foster city workin , living in belmont a the mo , but i was wondering if their is any military sites u would recommend around the san franciso area, already went to the uss pampanito (spelling?!) twas deadly too see and go inside a ww2 sub!

Manic Moran

USS Hornet is an aircraft carrier moored at Alameda. (Just South of Oakland). In the Marin Headlands (Golden Gate Recreation Area) is a restored Nike nuclear SAM site, but their open hours are very weird. Also in the Marin headlands are the old coastal batteries. The guns are gone now, but the bunkers and tunnels are still there. If you can figure out a way of getting there, the MVTF mentioned above is in Portola Valley, a little W of Palo Alto. Problem is that as it's a private collection, you can't just show up. Look up the website, they'll have an email somewhere to make an appointment. Usually Sats and Suns, two tours a day. And of course, there's the Presidio, which isn't really a military sight in itself, but was in its time a beautiful old base, now converted to civilian housing/commerce. Still plenty of old artillery on the base, and a base museum.

That's about it for the Bay Area that I can think of.

NTM

TempestSabre

Best tank is obviously the T-34. Panther was better technically, but unreliable. Which is no fun. Best fighter is the Hellcat F6F with a kill ratio of 19:1. (Mustang 11:1) ME 262 wasn't that great, terrible kill ratio, unreliable engines and abysmal accident rate. Couldn't maneuver at all. Strictly a BnZ fighter. (Boom and Zoom). Great at destroying bombers with those 30mm cannons.

TerrorFirmer

Me262 was on paper the most capable fighter in the war but it was

1) completely unreliable
2) deployed really badly
3) deployed too late in the war to make good use

The me262 suceeded in shooting down a considerable amount of american bombers during the last few months of the war but again, it was deployed too little, too late to have any impact.

Fighters aren't really my thing though so I wouldn't have any great opinion on the better fighers of the war...

Regarding tanks, it would probably have to be the russian t-34 and its later variants for sheer reliability and all around balance compared to the german counter parts, which were probably more powerful on a singlular basis but in the larger scheme of things russian armour was more efficent

ScottishDanny

The Hurricane is rated because of the damage it could take. You don't have to be the fastest or have the best armament if you're the last man standing and thats what counted in BoB. Also Stuka isn't really a fighter and was quite vulnerable to other fighters. f you want a crappiest then how about the RAF's defiant? 2 crew and one gun turet behind the pilot. Wierd design, maybe a legacy from WW1 style aircraft.
What about the Mitsubishi Zero?

TempestSabre

As a fighter the Hurricane was already outclassed by the BOB. However it was available in large numbers. Stable gun platform, (if undergunned) tight turning circle, and reasonably tough. After the BOB it was mainly used a fighter bomber as it was too slow.

Zero was a great fighter for the first half of the war, but suffered badly from being lightly armoured. In the 2nd half of the war it had been outclassed by the P38, F4U, Hellcat, Mustang, Thunderbolt, Spitfire etc.

silverharp

From a general’s point of view, 1000 T34’s are better then 200 Tigers. A plane I always liked was the mosquito, again very robust even though it was basically made out of balsa wood.

ScottishDanny

Does anyone know if the Irish Air Corps still have a spitfire? I saw a flypast over the factory in Southampton and one of the planes didn't have the usual RAF Roundel, it was on TV and they were moving fast so I couldn't ID it for sure but it looked like the Irish design (could have been Czech though).

TempestSabre

Thats owned by HISTORICAL FLYING LTD - DUXFORD. Not the Air Corps.

http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/spitfiremk2a/my-history-iac161.html

ScottishDanny

Nice one, it looks great

Dyr

TempestSabre wrote:

Best fighter is the Hellcat F6F with a kill ratio of 19:1. (Mustang 11:1) ME 262 wasn't that great, terrible kill ratio, unreliable engines and abysmal accident rate. Couldn't maneuver at all. Strictly a BnZ fighter. (Boom and Zoom). Great at destroying bombers with those 30mm cannons.

Hang on a minute, since when was being strictly a BnZ fighter a disadvantage? The top aces of world war2 all flew BnZ figters

TempestSabre

I didn't really mean being a Bnz fighter was entirely a disadvantage. Just that what it was. The main disadvantage was the engines and the accident rate.

You could still throw a piston engined fighter around and firewall the throttle in a tight spot. Do that in a 262 and the engines were likely to explode. You had to change throttle settings very slowly. So it was extremely vunerable on take off and landing. They needed cover from other fighters like 190 and they built massive flak lanes along the runways approach paths to protect them. The allies used to hang around and pick them off during take off and landing. See Clostermans book where he describes doing this in a tempest. Like the german tanks. No point in having the most technically advanced weapon, if its always breaking down just when you need it.

Surprise is the best tactic, you try and avoid combat. You surprise your target and get him with the first burst or two, if you miss you keep going and let your speed carry you beyond the target. If you get into close combat, or a turning fight the speed always drops and the more manoeverable AC has the advantage, which throws away any speed advantages you might have. So you try to disengage, extend then try again. Obviously if you are in a slower more manoeverable AC the opposite is true.

Slower AC (hurricanes, BF110 etc) used to be able to defend themselves by going into a tight defensive circle called a Luffberry Circle.

Dyr

TempestSabre wrote:

I didn't really mean being a Bnz fighter was entirely a disadvantage. Just that what it was. The main disadvantage was the engines and the accident rate.

You could still throw a piston engined fighter around and firewall the throttle in a tight spot. Do that in a 262 and the engines were likely to explode. You had to change throttle settings very slowly. So it was extremely vunerable on take off and landing. They needed cover from other fighters like 190 and they built massive flak lanes along the runways approach paths to protect them. The allies used to hang around and pick them off during take off and landing. See Clostermans book where he describes doing this in a tempest. Like the german tanks. No point in having the most technically advanced weapon, if its always breaking down just when you need it.

yeah im familiar with the problems the 262 had with its long take off and landing paths, though i thought it was more ta-152's that ran cover for them over their air strips, maybe that was only for the top squadrons

Another candidate is the corsair..serious firepower and horsepower, and remained in service up to the korean war i think

TempestSabre

ta-152 was very rare. I'd never heard much about it until there was such a fuss about getting it in IL2 in one of the updates. Corsair is one of my fav aircraft. Mustang was also in Korea.

kowloon

ta-152s were intended as a high altitude fighters, defending the 262s on the take off/landing circuit was misuse, i dont think an a/c can be considered bad if its not used in the way it was intended, and the fact that the 262 was easy to take down on the glide path is as mcuh down to allied fighters swamping them, had the 262 been an allied craft or the germans maintained air sup. i dont think this vulnerability would have made it into the history books as such a major flaw.
The 262s reliability issues would have been remedied given time, it takes time for a design to bed in, most of the problems were due to lack of understanding of new problems that werent present in props such as high temp. creep.
The metallurgy technology of the time wasnt up to it and the materials and facilities just werent available.
Taken out of the context of a country losing the war with industry crumbling and swarms of enemy fighters all over germany i believe the 262 was one of the best designs of the war, followed by the Merlin engined Mustangs, long nosed FWs and Griffon Spits.

TempestSabre

Best design is different to best fighter/tank IMO.

Bam Bam

The Final varient of the king tiger tank, when all the kinks were worked out, is hands down the best tank of the war.

The T-34 Rounds used to bounce off its armour and the sherman couldn't touch it.

It's 88mm gun ment it could destroy anything on the battlefield.


The ME262 was the best fighter. It could out fly, out manouvre and out fight the other fighters in the war. Unfortunately it was used when the Germans had all but lost the war and had long lost air superiority.

TempestSabre

King tiger was overweight, hence very slow cross country and very poor fuel economy for a tank. As a result it was used mainly in static defensive postions, until the fuel ran out and was then abandoned. Since it was up against 10 or 20 allied tanks they were simply out manoevered, or flanked. Eventually someone would get a shot in the rear or they'd call an airstrike to knock it out. It might take out 5 allied tanks in the process, but it didn't matter since there were loads of them.

ME262 doesn't matter how good it is if half of them are lost in accidents does it?

awhir

me like king panzer

Capt'n Midnight

Bambi wrote:

The hurricane? It was outclassed at the time of the battle of britain by the emil and the dora, i'd say factors other than the hurricane won the BOB

Still shot down more enemy planes than all other defenses combined during the battle of Britan. Easy to repair too. Spitfires were better planes but if the RAF only had them they would have lost the battle as they took too long to repair.

Tanks - T34, so many new features diesel and wide tracks too. Later german tanks that people rate highly were based in part on it.

Anyway in war you don't want the best, not even the second best, what you want is the third best because you can have it now while the other guys are trying to perfect theirs.

F6F Hellcat / Zero / Hurricane mentioned already

Other Contenders for the Fighter award
Yak 3
F4U Corsair
P-38 Lightning
Focke-Wulf Fw 190

Me262 engines only lasted 10 hours.

kowloon

If you make the distinction between best design/best actual

FW 190 D, Long nose models (9 i believe?) would be a favorite of mine.

As for best tank, the T34 (m41,m43,85)made the biggest impact, was numerous, (40000 or so built?) and had the technical edge early in the war (and was a contender throughout)

Design wise id go for the later panthers (when reliability was much improved, the tigers were too heavy and very underpowered (engine wise) and the panthers 7.5L70 had better armour penetration than the tigers 88.
The konigstiger was a self propelled bunker not a tank.
Always liked the ISIII though its much the same

LegacyUser

Id agree with BAMBAM....the Tiger and King Tiger were the best tanks during WW2. The T-34 was easily built had good design atributes,but for sheer killing power the 88mm gun of the tiger was awesome.

Capt'n Midnight

kaiser1 wrote:

for sheer killing power the 88mm gun of the tiger was awesome.

<cough> Iosif Stalin tank / IS3 122mm

KV-2 Heavy Artillery Tank. 152 mm (!) but not really a tank

During the Second World War over 40,000 American Sherman and 58,000 Soviet T-34s were produced, compared to 1,350 Tiger I and 500 Tiger II tanks.

In terms of resource utilisation the best tank destroyer of WWII was "three men in a jeep"
Driver, loader and the guy with the bazooka.

magick

IS3 122mm , was never in battle, in fact it only went though the streets of berlin after the german surrender

Manic Moran

True, but the IS-2 was also a 122mm gun, and that saw a fair bit of action.

That said, the 122mm was a bit of a lower-velocity gun, but it made up for it in sheer weight of shell.

The Panther's 75mm was more powerful than Tiger 1's 88mm.

NTM

FiSe

Bambi wrote:

The hurricane? It was outclassed at the time of the battle of britain by the emil and the dora, i'd say factors other than the hurricane won the BOB

Hi,

I don't want to be some sort of smart ars, but Doras alas FW-190D alas long nose Focke-Wulfs weren't up till mid '44. Which means, that they couldn't fight over Britain...

But, I think, that we just can't name only one 'plane or one tank. We have to talk in terms of light tank, medium tank and heavy tank. The same about a/c. I mean, bomber, fighter - like is in the name of the thread, etc. Numbers of manufactured vehicles should be kept away, from decision making, as they, by my opinion don't tell full story. Now I am talking about mass production of Shermans and T-34's...

By my opinion, the best light tank of WWII was German Hetzer, cheap and easy to build, simple construction, mighty 75mm gun...

Medium tanks, some people says Panther, others T-34. Panther was designed like counter-mesure against T-34's. But it was more complicated to manufacture than T-34.

Heavy tanks? This is a tricky one. What about IS-2? Or Pershing? Or was it King Tiger? When you read through some work regarding fighting on the eastern front in 1944-45 You get some picture... Two KingTigers and 300 men counter-attacked, they destroyed 15 enemy vehicles... I am not saying tanks:eek:

About fighter 'plane I am not quite sure, in my mind are workhorses like Spitfire, Bf-109, Mustang, or some of late war Japanese aircrafts.

TempestSabre

http://www.panzerace.net/english/pz_boc.asp?page=3

...In all, Wittmann's own calculations amounted to a roll call of some twenty-one enemy tanks and an unspecified number of half-tracks, troop carriers and Bren gun carriers; in what what one of the most astonishing feats of arms during the war, he had more or less single-handedly prevented the British advance. Naturally, the German propaganda agencies had a field day, and bloated kill figures were naturally thrown about: Wittman was initially credited with the single-handed destruction of 27 of the 30 British tanks that had been destroyed. Ever after a more sober analysis however, Michael Wittmann's achievement at Villers-Bocage still stands out as highly significant in the annals of armoured warfare; in one short sortie his Tiger had destroyed a staggering twenty-seven enemy vehicles, including a dozen tanks...

Tiger I

babybuilder

Fw-190D or possibly later versions of the Bf-109. But again it depended greatly on who was behind the controls. Look at the top 10 aces of the war and most of them were german. The skill of the american pilots greatly improved as the war went on and with the improvement in quality of the aircraft.

As far as tanks are concerned I think that it depended on the environment and battle conditions in place but you'd have to say that the panther could match and beat the T-43 one-on-one. However, as already mentioned, it made no difference as the germans were outnumbered 20 to one. They would have been better producing more Mk IV insted of wasting war effort on Tigers etc. Btw, wern't Panthers and Mk IVs used in the 1973 Israeli-arab conflict?

Manic Moran

babybuilder wrote:

Btw, wern't Panthers and Mk IVs used in the 1973 Israeli-arab conflict?

Syria had a few MkIVs used as static positions in the Golan.

By my opinion, the best light tank of WWII was German Hetzer

You've obviously never seen the inside of a Hetzer in real life. Because it was a make-shift using the pre-war Pz38(t) chassis, they had to stick everything in wherever the chassis and hull would allow it. It was extremely cramped, and was a royal bitch to operate. For example, the loader sat to the left side of the breech, and to load it, had to lift his ammunition up over, or back behind the recoil guard. (If behind, having to make sure he didn't whack into the TC's legs). Hetzer was an overloaded chassis with a low rate of fire and a gun which wasn't as accurate as its long-75 brethren in other vehicles.

My 'Light Tank' recommendation would go for either the BT-7 or the M5 Stuart. Both were highly mobile, small vehicles perfectly suited for the light tank (recon and cavalry) roles.

NTM

FiSe

Manic Moran wrote:

You've obviously never seen the inside of a Hetzer in real life. Because it was a make-shift using the pre-war Pz38(t) chassis, they had to stick everything in wherever the chassis and hull would allow it.It was extremely cramped, and was a royal bitch to operate...

.

I had the plesure to ride inside one, so, obviously, I have seen interior of a Hetzer...
Yes, it is very, very cramped inside, but, let's say much newer T-55 was not so luxurious either, as I can remember.

Anyway, there's no need to get angry right away:p
I was considering Stuart me-selft, but generally, all BT-7, Stue and Pz 38 have their origin in the late 30's. Correct me, please, if I am wrong, one can't know everything.

TempestSabre

I thought the main advantages of the Hetzer were its low profile (shoulder high?) and proven reliability. There were obviously later, better assault guns. But in the grand scale of things, it wasn't a war or even a battle winning weapon in the war that a T-34 was, or a Tiger could be.

Manic Moran

FiSe wrote:

.

I had the plesure to ride inside one, so, obviously, I have seen interior of a Hetzer...
Yes, it is very, very cramped inside, but, let's say much newer T-55 was not so luxurious either, as I can remember.

No, but at least it was better than the T-54, which has no turret basket/floor :-)

I'm not sure that comparing Hetzer to a vehicle with a tank known not to be at the top of the ergonomic scale is particularly saying much about the Hetzer. Hetzer certainly has its merits, particularly in terms of small size and frontal armour, but the poor interior layout and the mechanical issues of adding about half as much weight again onto the same chassis with the same horsepower engine in my opinion (worth what you paid for it) are of greater concern and outweigh the advantages. We're talking about a vehicle with an inconvenient loading system, a gun with limited traverse ability compared to StuGs or Jagdpanzers (See how far to the right the breech can move in Hetzer without the recoil path hitting the interior wall), bugger-all visibility when buttoned up, and a TC's position which is so far to the rear that at times he's useless in his primary role of providing the tank's situational awareness: Take a 'turret down' reverse slope position in a Hetzer (Classic ambush position), and see what the TC can see: Not much. The fact that Hetzer was incapable of neutral steering was a serious disadvantage in a turretless vehicle. Most German vehicles could neutral steer.

I put great emphasis in the 'crewability' of a tank while rating it. There's much more to what makes a tank great than simply crunching the numbers of gun size, armour thickness and top speed. This might be because as a tank crewman, that sort of thing is important to me. The fact that a Challenger 2's designers put thought and expense into track maintainance, for example, making it stupidly easy compared to an M1 Abrams doesn't come up very much in the 'rate the tank' TV shows and Internet threads, but after spending hours sledgehammering in end connectors, and exhausting myself with a grease gun on the M1, that sort of thing suddenly weights itself highly when one realises that CR2's track has end connectors that can't work out, and a hydraulic tensioning system that just involves pushing a button. If the crew is tired or uncomfortable, they are not going to make the best use of the tank's positive combat attributes.

I was considering Stuart me-selft, but generally, all BT-7, Stue and Pz 38 have their origin in the late 30's. Correct me, please, if I am wrong, one can't know everything.

You are correct, but the other two tanks were both designed to be light turreted vehicles, not a hodgepodge of "OK, the 38(t) is obsolete, we need to find something else to do with the chassis"

NTM

TempestSabre

In fairness the Germans had been experimenting with assult guns, tank destroyers for a quite a while. Theres nothing wrong with merging technolgies. Take the merlin and the P51=P-51B.

Kaiser_Sma

The Me163 Komet and the Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B tigerII

Capt'n Midnight

Kaiser_Sma wrote:

The Me163 Komet

Not really a war winner, because it has such a short range the allies simply bypassed areas where it was stationed. Even still it was a one pass weapon and extrememly dangerous to the end user because of the nature of the propellants.

Clare gunner

Amazed no one has mentioned the Spitfire.It outclassed the ME109 in ceiling height[In a dog fight that means everything] and could outrun the 109 as well.It had air supeirority until the FW showed up.
German planes I favour.FW long nose,Dornier pfeil[arrow] a push /pull twin engine fighter bomber.If that had been brought into production and the 262 back burnerd until it was ready.The Allies would have had quite a job keeping air supeirority.Tough as nails,,fast and very manouverable for it's shape.
It was side lined by high command for more obscure wunder waffen.

Tanks ;German Panther hands down.It was still the benchmark tank up to the early 1950s.Reliable enough,would have been better in Diesel,sloped armour,88mm,killed anything the Allies had.

Allied planes.
P51,Corsair,Spitfire,P38 Lightning[albeit terrible cockpit ergonomics]

Allied Tanks
US Perishing,was next gen and was going to be a match for German armour,but was really deployed too late to matter.

TempestSabre

Spitfire had lousy range, and problems inverted, so that how a 109 could get away from it.

Kaiser_Sma

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Not really a war winner, because it has such a short range the allies simply bypassed areas where it was stationed. Even still it was a one pass weapon and extrememly dangerous to the end user because of the nature of the propellants.

Oh i know exactly how useless it was, but it's exactly it's danger and it's impracticalities that make me love it so.