Well here they are, the 10 best tanks of World War Two in my opinion
and evaluation. They were evaluated on the following criteria: Main
gun, armor, off-road and mechani-cal performance, ease of production
and battle experience. Honorable mentions below.
#10 M26 Pershing Some may argue that the M26 Pershing should not be
ranked. I understand why. The reasoning is simple: limited combat,
late war entry. Aside from that, this American heavy tank mounted the
best American anti-tank gun, a 90mm L/50 main gun. The armor of a
Pershing was thicker than any American tank of the war. It had
excellent mechanics and off-road performance. The Pershing was
nicknamed the " Tiger Tamer " and for good reasons. For the Pershing
to be easier to produce than Tigers was as-tounding. This tank slips
to the number 10 spot for being late into the war and seeing little
combat.
#9 M4A3E8 Sherman The best American version of the Sherman was this
tank. It mounted an excellent 76mm L/54 gun. The armor of this tank
was, however still not up to par with the Panthers or Tigers, but was
sufficient for dealing with Pz-IV's. The mechanics of this tank were
excellent, just as all the previous Shermans. The Shermans had the
best mechanical endurance and reliability of any tank during the war.
The M4A3E8 Sherman was easily produced as with all the other versions
making it one of the 10 best tanks of WWII.
#8 T-34/76 The T-34/76 may be credited with saving the Russians. It
was a tank that had no German counterparts equal to it until the
Panther. The 76.2mm gun was very ef-fective against all German tanks
at first. The armor was rea-sonably thick and was the first tank to
introduce sloped ar-mor. The off-road performance and mechanical
workings of the T-34/76 tank series was also better than the German
panzers at the time. The ease of production for the T-34/76 resulted
in some 40,000 of all types being produced. This rugged little tank
has earned its spot on the top 10 tanks list.
#7 PZ-IVH The Pz-IV series was the mainstay of the Ger-man Panzerwaffe
throughout the war. The Pz-IV saw many variants，but this ausf. was
the best. It had better armor than its Sherman counterpart. The 75mm
L/48 was better than the M4a3e8 Sherman's main gun also. The Pz-IVH
had good speed, faster than all the German heavy tanks. Its mechanical
performance was excellent. The Pz-IVH was produced in more numbers
than any other Pz-IV. Besides the T-34/85 and Firefly, this was the
best anti-tank medium tank of the war.
#6 T-34/85 The Russian T-34/85 was an up-gunned T-34/76 with a new
turret to accommodate the larger 85mm L/53 gun. The T-34/85 had good
all around armor that was even better than previous versions. The
off-road abilities of the T-34/85 equaled that of earlier versions.
The tank was so easy to produce that the Russians built some 12,000 of
these formidable tanks. The T-34/85 rightfully earned its place as the
Russians main tank.
#5 Sherman Firefly This British adaptation of the Sherman was the most
deadly, mounting the 17 pounder gun which was equal to the performance
of the Tiger's 88mm L/56 gun. The main problem with a Firefly was its
thin armor when compared with its German counterparts. The mechanics
and off-road abilities are equal to a normal Shermans. The Fire-fly
was the best all around anti-tank tank of the Second World War for the
Western Allies who most often found themselves under-gunned.
#4 Tiger The Germans first true heavy tank. The Tiger has been
somewhat of a mystical tank. It's ability to strike fear into the
hearts of Allied tankers is uncanny. It's adaptaion of the 88mm FlaK
gun was the best gun of its time until intro-duction of others. The
armor of a Tiger was so thick that the early Western Allied tanks had
an extremely hard time to knock it out. The Tiger had its share of
mechanical prob-lems and was not as fast as a Panther. The Tiger was
an ex-cellent weapon，but may be overrated by some people.
#3 JS-II The best Russian tank to see combat. After its ini-tial debut
in April 1944, the JS-II was in demand all along the Russian front. It
had very thick armor and a 122mm gun. The JS-II's 122mm gun is the
second most deadly on this list. The JS-II became the Soviet's main
production model of the JS series, eventually having 2,250 produced.
The JS-II was a match for a King Tiger and even more than a match for
a Tiger or a Panther. It's high production cost and worse mechanical
performance compared to the Panther G keep it from overtaking the 1
and 2 positions.
#2 King Tiger The heaviest tank at 69 tons, it was also probably the
most formidable. Very expensive to produce with it's thick armor that
was only penetrable by the biggest guns. It mounted arguably the most
deadly tank gun of the war: the high velocity 88mm L/71 gun. Too slow
for swift offensives, it was the perfect defensive tank. Off-road
per-formance was marginal at best. The great toughness of the King
Tiger earns it the 2nd best tank of World War 2.
#1 Panther G This is the all around best tank. It's early ver-sion
experienced some drive mechanism problems, but the G ausf. had all the
kinks worked out. The high velocity 75mm /L70 main gun was superior
even to the 88mm gun of the Tiger. With excellent armor in the front
and improved armor on the sides from previous versions, the Panther G
was hard to kill. It was fast and had good off-road abilities, coupled
with the fact that they were far cheaper to produce than the King
Tiger gave the Panther G the edge to win best all around tank.
兩名英國侯補戰車
The Honorable Mentions
Valentine 式英國戰車 (華倫泰)
此車速度慢，並且主砲口徑經常不及敵方。
Valentine Series British tank that served Britain during WWII,
however, slow and usually undergunned.
Matilda II :British tank known as the "Queen of the Des-ert" against
the Italians. Design dates back to the tactics of WWI. Slow and
heavily armored for its time. Designed for infantry support.
