Were panzers more successful than American tanks in World War 2?

Answer 1

The Germans had been practicing and perfecting Combined Arms tactics and training, following WW1 all the way until WW2 happened, in Russia, I might add with Russian Assistance. America, on the other hand went thru the depression and the last thing on Americas mind, after WW1, was building a modern military.

The Germans had a big head start over the US Military when we were drug into WW2. The Germans had proven that the tanks werent as important, as using combined arms to wage war. they had proven this when they rolled thru France, the French had better tanks, but the Germans had countered with concentrating armour and tactics, Air support, and Artillary. After the American Army got its knocks at kasseine pass, they quickly learned and adapted.

intially you have to admit that the panzer units were very successful, but don't forget that less than 10% of the German army was mechanized when they invaded Russia, The German tanks werent up to the Russian tanks in Armour or Firepower, and the burden for stopping Russian Tank attacks fell to the landser (foot soldier) in the trenches to take on these beast with smoke pots and mines. If lucky a few Stugs might be available to assist or underpowered anti-tank guns.

German tanks were well made and dependable as a rule, whether it was a mark IV, or a Tiger. But the shermans were dependable and numerous and skilled sherman crewman learned to use terrain to get in close, with other shermans, to get the close in kill. Allied fighters and Aritillary contributed greatly, when available.

hopefully i wasnt too long winded and this helps.

To add a little, the Panzers were more powerful and better armored than the most popular American tank, the Sherman. However, Germany produced a small fraction of Panzers to the amount of Shermans the Americans made. So that a one on one battle between a Panzer (especially the powerful late-war Tigers) and a Sherman was pretty much instant death for the Americans, the battles were rarely one on one. In tank battles the more powerful Panzers would be swarmed by the less powerful, but far more numerous Shermans. Another favored tactic was to call in Air support, if available, to knock out any German tanks ahead.

Also, Shermans weren't designed to battle Panzers as much as they were made for infantry support. When Panzers were spotted, usually air strikes or artillery strikes were called in to neutralize them.

So tl/dr, Panzers were better for tank vs. tank battles than Shermans, but American tactics neutralized this advantage because the Army mostly refused to get into tank v. tank battles unless the US tanks greatly outnumbered the German tanks. But usually they'd used other means to destroy them such as tank-buster planes and artillery.