best tank and fighter in ww2?

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.

TerrorFirmer

Kaiser_Sma wrote:

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.

It was poor in the scheme of things but the m262 shot down a considerable amount of bombers and could have made a (relatively speaking) big impact were it not for the insane ways it was deployed

marcsignal

If you can dismiss logistical problems like availability of Chrome and Copper to the Germans, I'd vote the Messerschmitt 262 Turbojet as best Aircraft, fighter Ace Adolf Galland described it as "Like being pushed along by Angels" it was so fast and the weaponry on the fighter versions was Awesome.

The Panther Tank is 'generally' believed by most historians to have been (Technically) the best tank of WW2.
However as previously posted, it's virtually impossible to generalise. For example the American P51D Mustang is also believed to be the best propeller Aircraft of WW2, its speed was incredible and range unsurpassed.

In terms of advances in Aviation the krauts had it sewn up in my opinion.

check these links....

http://www.vectorsite.net/avar234.html

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/aircraft/Heinkel-Salamander/info/info.htm

http://tanks45.tripod.com/Jets45/Histories/He280/He-280.htm

Clare gunner

TempestSabre wrote:

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

True,the 109 was fuel injected,so it didnt cut out in a inverted power dive BUT lost out because of It's range,it had to come from France. Hence later mods of the 109 were equipped with an aux outside tank,which made things worse,as it wasn't a drop tank,it made the aerodynamics worse.The Spits range in the Battle of Britan wasnt too much of a problem,as it was fighting over it's home ground.Yes it was a big problem,with bomber escorts.There was none!

TempestSabre

Clare gunner wrote:

True,the 109 was fuel injected,so it didnt cut out in a inverted power dive BUT lost out because of It's range,it had to come from France. Hence later mods of the 109 were equipped with an aux outside tank,which made things worse,as it wasn't a drop tank,it made the aerodynamics worse.The Spits range in the Battle of Britan wasnt too much of a problem,as it was fighting over it's home ground.Yes it was a big problem,with bomber escorts.There was none!

The title is best fighter in WW2 not Battle Of Britain. The Spitfire is one of the greats. Its probably the most famous, and loved fighter of WWII. But best? To many flaws. Lack of range was a problem that always dogged the spit, in all theatres, especially after the Battle of Britain. Corsair, Hellcat, Mustang, were better alrounders, better payload, range, more rugged.

FiSe

Clare gunner wrote:

...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...

Just only quick response, Panther has 75mm gun, Jagdpanther 88mm... Don't remember their exact full names, but it's only click away...;)

Kaiser_Sma

HavoK wrote:

It was poor in the scheme of things but the m262 shot down a considerable amount of bombers and could have made a (relatively speaking) big impact were it not for the insane ways it was deployed

I am aware of this, but the 262 was too wingloady and dull. Fighter escort pffft. The Me163 was a 7minute flying time death trap witch required the pilots to bail out opon any eventuality except a smooth straight runway landing with no fuel left in the tank. Any chance of the T-stoff and C-Stoff (if my memory serves me) mixing ment instant explosive death for the pilot.
I also like it's shape and the great purple cloud it left behind it everywere.

theCzar

T-34 for me, love that tank. There were better tanks in the war, but in terms of impact... not in my opinion.

FiSe

You have all of them in there, FW 190D's, T-34's, Panthers, Hetzers, StuG's

Capt'n Midnight

Best tank = Landcruiser
Best Fighter = Killercraft

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwar:_In_the_Balance
As used by The Race from Tau Ceti II.

TerrorFirmer

The rare King Tiger tank also made a fairly big impact in the west in the last 8-9 months, especially in the ardennes offensive. Good tank, but introduced far too late.