What did tanks look like?

Answer 1

If you're asking for a straight description then:

By 1939 when Germany hit Poland, tanks had basically taken the standard chassis/turret shape, however they were pretty light, off the top of my head I think the Panzer I's were around 35 tonnes, but they changed the entire face of war. The internal radios, and tactics the German's had used them to perfection, and that's why they gained so much so early. The Russians had some pretty big ones in the beginning because they were still going for the 'mobile fortress' thing, with examples of like one massive central turret and smaller ones to the sides, though they were really slow and got hammered.

The Panzer III's and English Churchills in the early 40's (I think) were much larger, with larger central guns, a chassis mounted MG usually at the front, and a coaxial MG on top. I think they were around 40-50tonnes. That was also when the German Tiger was just coming into play, and that was the big one at the time that scared the crap out of everyone, though there just werent enough of them. I think around that time the first T-34's were rolling off the line as well, they were a mass produced Russian 'Peoples' tank', so basically a chassis, an engine, and a stick to drive it with. The thing with that one was it was the first (or one of them) to used angled armour to deflect shots.

Towards the end 43-45, the German's began to pull out some cool looking ones, the Panzer IV was an average looking thing, but they started adding large plate metal sheets to the sides. The Panther was a good looking front line tank with angled panels. The King Tiger came out as well which was pretty much a larger turret on the Tiger chassis, and the Jagdtiger was even bigger, with a solid fixed gun, and the Sturmtuger was similar but used sort of a sawn-off ship gun on it. It was around then they began adding all the wavy anti magnetic textures to the tank surfaces as well. It depends on what info you're looking for.

To me by far though, the best looking tanks were the tank destroyers the Germans had, with the gun set into the chassis itself. The best of which is the Jagdpanther, look it up, the shape is just one solid slope going down to the base, very cool.

The US had the Sherman, and some other one, but the Sherman's benefit was mass production and adaptability, not looks...

I'm not sure what you were looking to hear. An interesting thing was that each nation had a distinctive style to their designs. Like I said that was off the top of my head, but the best thing to do for more info is simply Google. There are scores of tank fanatic websites out there.

Hope this helps.