Top 10 tanks of the war

My list is like this:

Heavy Tanks
1940 = KV-1
1941 = KV-1
1942 = Tiger Ausf.E
1943 = Tiger Ausf.E
1944 = Tiger Ausf.B
1945 = Tiger Ausf.B

Medium Tanks
1940 = PzIV
1941 = T-34
1942 = Pz.IV/T-34
1943 = Panther
1944 = Panther
1945 = Panther

 

Btw, I didn't at all consider unit cost when making my list, so that's why you see the Tiger & Panther there. I know they were expensive as all heck, but atleast they made up for that in combat performance.

Anyway if I had taken unit cost into account the list would be differen't, and you'd definitely see the T-34 taking 1st place in 41,42 & 43.

Btw I didn't add the IS-2 as it was cramped, had a very slow rate of fire, had only a 4 man crew, bad turret positioning, no movable forward hull mg and poor optics. It did feature great overall armour protection in terms of thickness though, the Russians were very good at armouring their tanks well.

 

Sigh ......its been a long day, I suppose I'll deal with this in the morning after I get some rest

 

the best tank do not mean the strongest or heaviest or fastest tank
there is five elements to be consider in choosing the best tank

1- production and cost
2- service length
3- firepower
4- protection
5- reliability and mechanical problem


1- No one want to produce 50000 Cromwell tank

the Cromwell was the fastest British tank to serve in the Second World War, with a top (ungoverned) speed of 40 mph (64 km/h). Unfortunately this speed proved too much for even the Christie suspension and the engine was governed to give a top speed of 32 mph (51 km/h), which was still fast for its time second to
the T-34 (55 km/h)

The Cromwell only successful was in the reconnaissance regiments of British armoured divisions because of their great speed


2-Cromwells were used to fully equip only one division, the 7th Armoured Division and was quickly succeeded by the Comet tank.
the Sherman remained the most common tank in British and Commonwealth armoured units.

3- the dual purpose 75 mm main gun fired the same ammunition as the US 75 mm gun and therefore it had around the same HE and armour-piercing capabilities as the 75 mm equipped Sherman tank.
the realization that the Cromwell tank did not have a turret ring big enough to take the new High Velocity 75mm gun (50 calibres long), so the Cromwell would have to be armed with the general purpose Ordnance QF 75 mm.[ Thus the Sherman Firefly represented the only available tank with firepower superior to the QF 75 mm gun in the British Army’s arsenal. Not surprisingly, Firefly was given the ‘highest priority’ by Winston Churchill himself

4- The Cromwell's armour ranged from 8 mm up to 76 mm thick . This armour compared well with that of the Sherman although the Cromwell did not share the Sherman’s sloped glacis plate which is better
so the Cromwell can not stand against any german tank in 1944
and it is a easy target for the germans

the T-34 was by far the best tank design in World War 2. In addition to having an excellent combination of firepower, armor, mobility, and shape, its superb technical design

Some T-34 tanks are apparently still being used by some military forces even today,

challenger armor was 30 mm (its big weakness )
while firefly armor was 89 mm
the Sherman Firefly was perhaps the most valued tank by British and Commonwealth commanders, as it was the only tank in the allies Army able to effectively defeat the Panthers and Tigers at the standard combat ranges in Normandy

 

The M3 75mm gun could kill Mark IV at as long as 1,500 meters. Crowmell was lightly armored, but did that really matter? What major German AT weapon could kill a Cromwell but not a Sherman?

 

Not that you are wrong, but that number seems a little off to me. I believe that the 75mm could penetrate about 89mm or armor at 300m. The smallest amount of armor the Pzr. IV had was 45mm. Actually I suppose that is possible if you are talking about side armor. Do you have a source?

 

The primary task for armour is not to kill other tanks. The main enemy for the tank is dug in AT guns. And all parties in the war could knock out enemy tanks with their AT guns.

 

I would not put "Tiger B" and "good" in the same sentence. The Panther tank was not ready for combat in 1943; the best tank for that year would be the M4 Sherman, hands down. For the best heavy of the war I would submit the IS-2. It was lighter than the Panther but had more gun and armor than it, and was not a manpower/resource extravaganza like the Tiger. The allegedly poor Russian optics was a thing of 1941. By 43 Russian optics were more than adequate; a tanknetter who had access to Yugoslavian army evaluations quoted their army as saying that T-34-85 had better optics than Sherman. The IS's poor rate of fire and ergonomics was not essential to its task as a line-breaker. Russian assault doctrine was to attack in echelon, T-34-85 and infantry up front, heavy-caliber assault guns and Ioseph Stalin tanks on the second line to suppress AT guns and pillboxes. It's hard to argue how the IS-2 M44 would be inferior to the Tiger E, certainly, when the German 88 couldn't scratch its frontal armor and the Panther's 75 ineffective at 1,000 meters.

 

Trust me, I know. But since the subject of 75mm M3's effectiveness against German armor at combat ranges was brought up, I felt that I shouldn't let it go. The American/Commonwealth 75mm was eminently servicable against the bulk of German armor.

 

Why not ? It was the most powerful & advanced tank of the entire war. It featured the heaviest armour, the deadliest gun, the best optics of any tank developed during the war. I think that qualifies it as being one of the best tanks of the war.

The reason that the Tiger II wasn't the most reliable in the field can be attributed to a number of things: Lack of regular maintenance, lack of spare parts & lack of skilled drivers.

Please don't base your opinion on the biased stuff written here: www.Battlefield.ru. That site is not only very one sided but it also deliberately leaves out important facts and changes original picture descriptions to better fit the author of the site's views.

It did suffer from some serious transmission reliability issues for sure, but the Sherman & T-34 suffered from lack of proper armour & armament by that time, so I guess it's a matter of choosing what you want the most.

I don't believe the IS-2 is anywhere close to diserving that position, it wasn't a very good design in my opinion. The gun was too big for the tank, it was too cramped, the reload rate way to slow and the armour penetration performance of the gun the same as the Panther's 75mm gun.

I don't believe this to be the case seeing I've actually seen the optics, and the T-34/85's & IS-2's optics are of very shoddy quality. I also think it's quite telling that other countries who bought tanks such as the T-34 from the Soviet Union emmidiately changed the optics because they were too poor in their opinion.

Well it would find itself it quite some trouble if it ended up in tank to tank combat where a fast reloading rate is quite essential.

Couldn't scratch it's frontal armour ? I believe you are grossly overestimating the IS-2 Triple C.

The only area on the IS-2's armour that the German KwK36 would have trouble against was its front glacis plate which was 120mm thick and sloped 60 degrees. But first off this area was pretty small, and secondly the the IS-2's front turret was only 100mm thick, and the lower hull was only sloped 30 degrees, so a Tiger Ausf.E could actually quite easily knock out an IS-2 frontally from over 2 kilometers away, and the Panther's 7.5cm gun was deadly against it at even longer ranges.

 

Or in other words...the need for regular maintenance, the need for so many spare parts, and the need for a skilled driver do to its complexity.

The King Tiger was a logistical nightmare. It housed the same engine as the Panther tank resulting in a much lower power-to-weight ratio, and the tank was therefore much slower and less mobile than most other tanks. Its need for fuel was far too great considering Germany's fuel situation. It was so complex that it would often breakdown and have to be abandoned as no one was able to fix it and no supplies were at hand. With less than 500 of these tanks being produced, their effect on the war was non existent, and were simply a drain on German industry.

You essentially have the very typical outlook of a "newbie" Only considering armor and armament.

 

The Tiger didn't need more spare parts than any other tank, and today most tanks need trained drivers as-well. The problem was not the tank, it was the situation Germany was in by the time of its introduction.

The Panther was probably the most mobile tank of the war so that's a pretty bad comparison. And the Tiger Ausf.B was also very mobile, being capable of negotiating obstacles many other tanks couldn't, infact according German reports it possessed better offroad performance than both the Sherman & PzIV. Ground pressure was lower than both.

So was that of the Pz.IV and virtually every other German tank. The Germans were running desperately low on fuel. This can't be blamed on the tank.

That's not true. The mechanics were perfectly capable of fixing it, the problem was that the correct spare parts weren't always available and fuel was in desperately low supply. There's no need to exaggerate things.

Actual German combat reports say otherwise.

Why would you say that? I am just taking everything into account that's all.

When people say this & that tank was unreliable I go check for the reasons, and so far I've read many books on these tanks. In reality the Tiger Ausf.B wasn't nearly as unreliable as many people claim, it often just lacked regular maintenance, spare parts, fuel & trained drivers.

The problem is that the Tiger E, Panther & Tiger B all didn't recieve regular maintenance by 1944 onwards, spare parts were lacking and so was fuel & trained personnel. The supply of spare parts & fuel can be attributed to the Allied bombing attacks on German industry, while the lack of trained personnel to the fact that the war had been going on for 4 years on 4 different fronts: Africa, W Europe, E Europe & S Europe.

 

Proeliator,

False

First of all that statement is quite untrue. Second of all...

When the Panther D tank was to be built, Guderian asked for a tank with superior mobility to the T-34. However, what he ended up with was a 45 ton tank with a petrol engine, front wheel drive, and poor suspension. They opted for a complex set of interleaved road wheels, which were quick to clog up with mud, and made it very difficult to change an inner wheel as you would have to take off other wheels. In 1943 no panzer unit equipped with Panther D and early model Panther A tanks were able to sustain an operational readiness rate above 35%. More Panthers were lost to mechanical problems in 1943 than to enemy combat. The transmission system was also poor as 5 percent broke within 100km and almost 90 percent broke down within 1,500km. The final drive on the Panther D was so bad that it could not even turn the tank while backing up. It fuel pumps were also a huge problem, they would often leak and cause massive engine fires. The Panther D and A tanks were so prone to breakdown that they had to transport them by train along with the Tiger I. When some Panther A tanks were first being distributed to the SS-Leibstandarte in Italy, September 1943, they were so poor that every one was rejected for service. In summary, the Panther D was a 45 ton tank running on a chassis built for a 24 ton vehicle with very poor mobility and reliability.

The Panther G tanks were not much better. They had very poor fuel consumption rates (a topic I forgot to mention when discussing the Panther D and A but surly prevailing to those two tanks as well). The Panther G could get 60-80 miles on road and 40-50 miles cross country with about 190 gallons of gasoline (To put that into perspective the M4A3 Sherman could get 100 miles on road and about 65 miles cross country with 168 gallons of gasoline). The suspension was improved slightly but still remained a problem. The suspension allowed it to "turn on a dime" but was badly overstressed and suffered from premature stripping of the third gear. Also its single teeth spur gears would often strip very readily. In 1944 during the time of the Battle of the Bulge, in outfits equipped with Panther G tanks, 35-40 percent of them were unavailable due to mechanical problems. This was probably made greater by the lack of fuel and spare parts at that point in the war for Germany. These tanks would often brake down but were so complex that nobody knew how to fix them. And again, similarly to the Panther D, these were shipped by train as long marches with Panthers were not encouraged.

You are not addressing my argument. The same engine used to drive the 45-ton Panther tank was used to drive the 70-ton King Tiger tank. "The Tiger II initially experienced numerous automotive problems which required a continuous series of minor modifications to correct. These problems can be traced to two main causes: leaking seals and gaskets and an over taxed drive train originally designed for a 40 metric ton vehicle."

False, the Tiger I had a maximum road range of 62 miles, the Tiger II had a maximum road range of 68 miles. The Panzer IV had a maximum road range of 125 miles.

No exaggeration.

Oh really? What battles did the Tiger II help the Germans win. Please don't tell me it was only because there was a shortage of supplies and men that they weren't efficient.

Again, they needed so much maintenance

Really? Who knew? Only the 10th time you have pointed it out.



Oh and where is the Sherman...let me guess undergunned and underarmored?

 

The Tiger II has some serious design flaws in it. First, it used the same Maybach engine that the Panther used. This engine is overstressed in the Panther. In the Tiger the greater weight places more torque on the motor resulting in higher stresses and higher rates of engine failure.
The transmission, final drives and cluch are all weak comparatively. The final drives in particular were a constant source of problems in not only the Tiger II but the Panther as well. These can be traced to inferior design using straight cut gears rather than involute series herringbone ones like the US used. The later type of gear gives greatly improved service and is much tougher under rough handling and abuse.
It isn't just lack of maintenance, but lack of maintainability that makes the Panther and Tiger poor in this field. Very little engineering went into making these tanks easy to service. Engine and transmission changes typically took several days to accomplish. On US vehicles this generally could be done in less than a day's work and with fewer men. The lack of proper heavy equipment to assist in maintenance tasks hurt the Germans too. They had few ARV, those they did have were often underpowered for the tanks they were to recover, had few mobile shop trucks, few heavy cranes, and generally lacked the wherewithall to perform heavy maintenance in a timely fashion.
The use of single pin dry steel tracks led to short track life while the preference on the heavier tanks to use interleaved / overlapped suspensions and no return rollers on a loosely tensioned track led to short track life.
The Germans also decided to go to hydraulic turret traverse which greatly slowed the rate of train of their tanks. This sometimes proved decisive in the US' favor against Shermans with their much faster electric traverse systems.
The Tiger II also has a flaw in storing alot of its ammunition in the turret bustle. While spall screens were provided, this choice proved dangerous to crews as even non-penetrating hits could ignite the ammunition stored there.
Best optics? I don't think there is alot to choose under most conditions between German optics and other nations. All were using stradametric gunsights, either monocular or binocular, with 3 to 6X magnification.

I agree wtih this statement.

The Panther in 1943 suffered a whole plethora of problems some minor, some major. Suspension componet failure. Engine fires and overheating. Transmission and final drive failures.
The Sherman and T34 both had about the same amount of armor and similar gun performance. The big Sherman issue was its tendency to burn when hit. Applicae armor and then wet ammunition storage solved this problem in short order.
But, what it comes down to by mid 1943 is the Germans have about 200 Panthers in service facing several thousand T-34 and several thousand Shermans. The Germans can't even manage to keep all of their panzer divisions operating with two full tank battalions and the Pz III represents about 30 to 50% of the armor available in every division. The balance is generally Pz IV and most have a long 75 but, there are still some short 75's in service too.
I guess its a matter of what you want: Sufficent tanks to fight the war or "better" tanks that exist in tiny numbers.

The Soviets developed and used the IS 2 and 2m in the proper fashion that heavy tanks were meant to be used: As support vehicles for their battlefield tank the T 34. Like the SU and ISU series the IS 2 was more a support vehicle that backed up the T 34 than an independent heavy tank as the Germans typically used the Tiger. By placing one or two heavy tank regiments (battalions) and / or SU / ISU regiments in a tank or mechanized corps they created a dilemmia for the Germans.
If the Germans engaged the T-34 it left the heavier vehicles free to act in overwatch from longer range and engage the Germans. If the Germans concentrated on the heavier tanks then the probability was the T 34 could close and make the needed breakthrough of the German lines.
The 122 may have similar on paper armor penetrating performance but the heavier round is likely to do significant damage even when it doesn't penetrate. Also, the 122 fires a much more effective HE round. This is far more important than armor penetration performance is.

I don't think on the whole there is much difference in optics to choose when you are discussing normal battle ranges. The important thing is engagement rate. The US typically had the shortest followed by British and German vehicles with the Soviets having the slowest. Engagmement rate is the ability to find the enemy, get on target and, then effectively engage that target. Where the US had the advantage was in traverse rates, stabilization (and yes, it did work when a crew bothered to learn to use it) and, control coordination.
The Soviets have the problem of two man turrets and a general lack of vision devices on their tanks until late 1943 when the problem is recognized and they begin to fix it.
The US and British also have the advantage of the best radio systems in their tanks giving them better access to information on the battlefield.

But, the Soviets don't use their tanks in penny packets as a rule. The Germans end up doing so simply because that's all they have that are operational. Where you have IS 2's working with T34 you get the dilemma. The IS 2 can kill you at long range but engagements at long distances take time. The T34 are closing fast and at short range are dangerous too. Which do you engage?

The German estimates on engaging an IS 2m with the Panther are:

Front 600 meters
Side 2000 meters
Rear 2000 meters

The Tiger I's 88 gives about equal performance here.
The problem for the Panther is that the Soviet 122 firing heavy wall HE can stove in the glacis of a Panther at well over 1500 meters through the combination of impact and shock the HE causes. The US 105mm HE-T heavy wall HE round could do likewise to about 800 meters. I've seen the photos of those rounds. The target Panthers have a hole big enough to drive a bus through in their glacis....
The IS 2 firing AP likewise has the advantage frontally. The Tiger is a bit better actually as its armor basis is thicker and the vehicle as a whole better protected.

No, it didn't need more spare parts but it needed the ones it did more frequently and it took longer to replace them. That is a problem. The poor quality of many parts on mid to late war German tanks is a major problem.

Tactically? Nah. The T34/76 1942 and 43 can run circles around it on soft ground. The US M18 blows its doors off too. The Cromwell on anything but deep mud is at least as mobile and maybe moreso.
Both the Tiger and Panther suffer from relatively short range.
Operationally, the two German vehicles could not make a unit road march of 200 miles on their own tracks without losing the majority of the unit to breakdowns. Sherman units could easily manage this without undue mechanical losses and, those that were suffered could be fixed much faster putting the tank back in serivce.
Then we come to that major failing of the Wehrmacht in general: A near complete lack of civil engineering capacity.

The mechanics may have been. But, poor ergonomics in design meant they took alot longer doing it too and often had to take shortcuts or make jury rigged repairs rather than the proper ones.

List them.

Why would you say that? I am just taking everything into account that's all.

The Tiger II was unreliable comparatively. It wasn't just lack of maintenance either. There were significant design flaws in many of the automotive systems in particular that caused this problem.
While not the Tiger II, the Jadgtiger for example highlights the lack of thinking going into maintainability: On that vehicle to remove the transmission or final drives for replacement or repair the maintenance crew had to (with the one battalion gantry crane set up and available):

Remove the fighting compartment roof (several tons in weight)
Remove the gun and gun shield (21 tons total)
Remove the driver compartment roof
Disconnect the drive shaft
Remove most of the driver and hull gunner's equipment
Remove the transmission
Remove the final drives

In most cases this took a maintenance crew a dedicated 7 to 10 days to fix one vehicle. The point is that the for the Wehrmacht maintenance and maintainability took a distinct back seat to more tactical needs. It was a poor trade off.
When you couple it with their lack of civil engineering capacity and poor operational movement rate for heavy armor the whole exercise is even more ludicrious.

 

Wow, seems like I struck a nerve or something, after just 4 posts on this forum I'm already being called an idiot

But instead of argueing with you I guess I'm just gonna ask wether you got any sources to back up your claims ? Namely that the Tiger Ausf.B needed more spare parts than any other tank, was immobile and that it had no effect on the battlefield at all?

Meanwhile I can simply state the facts:

During the period January 1945 to April 1945 the s.SSPz.Abt 503's Tiger Ausf.B's had achieved over 500 confirmed kills on the Eastern Front for the loss of just 45 Tiger Ausf.B's, most of which were either abandoned and destroyed by their own crews after running out of fuel or breaking down without spare parts. (Jentz)


"The Tiger II initially experienced numerous automotive problems which required a continuous series of minor modifications to correct. These problems can be traced to two main causes: leaking seals and gaskets and an over taxed drive train originally designed for a 40 metric ton vehicle. The problem of keeping a Tiger II in running condition was compounded by a shortage of skilled drivers many of whom may have never experienced driving any vehicle prior to entering the service. In addition they were provided only limited driver's training, and then usually on a different type of panzer, and received their own Tiger II usually within a few days before being shipped to the front. But, with mature drivers, taking required maintenance halts, and modification of key automotive components, the Tiger II could be maintained in a satisfactory operational condition. Status reports from the Western Front, dated March 1945, showed that the percentage of Tigers operational at the Front was about equal to the PzKpfw IV and as good as or better than the Panther." (Jentz)

Also here's a comparison in mobility between the tanks in question:

Panther
Maximum speed: 54.9 km/h
Road speed: 35-40 km/h
Cross country speed: 20 km/h
Combat radius: 200 km
Ground clearence: 0.58 m
Min turning radius: 4.7 m
Fording Depth: 1.9 m
Step Climbing: 0.9 m
Climbing Degrees: 35 degrees
Trench Crossing: 2.45 m

Tiger Ausf.E
Maximum speed: 45 km/h
Road speed: 38 km/h
Cross country speed: 20 km/h
Combat radius: 195 km
Ground clearence: 0.47 m
Min turning radius: Pivot
Fording Depth: 1.6 m
Step Climbing: 0.79 m
Climbing Degrees: 35 degrees
Trench Crossing: 2.3 m

Tiger Ausf.B
Maximum speed: 41.5 km/h
Road speed: 38 km/h
Cross country speed: 20 km/h
Combat radius: 170 km
Ground clearence: 0.5 m
Min turning radius: 2.08 m
Fording Depth: 1.8 m
Step Climbing: 0.85 m
Climbing Degrees: 35 degrees
Trench Crossing: 2.5 m

Sherman M4A2
Maximum speed: 48 km/h
Road speed: 40 km/h
Cross country speed: 20 km/h
Combat radius: 240 km
Ground clearence: 0.43 m
Min turning radius: 9.5 m
Fording Depth: 1 m
Step Climbing: 0.6 m
Climbing Degrees: 30 degrees
Trench Crossing: 2.3 m

Pz.Kpfw.IV G
Maximum speed: 42 km/h
Road speed: 35 km/h
Cross country speed: 16 km/h
Combat radius: 210 km
Ground clearence: 0.4 m
Min turning radius: 5.92 m
Fording Depth: 1 m
Step Climbing: 0.6 m
Climbing Degrees: 30 degrees
Trench Crossing: 2.2 m

T-34/85
Maximum speed: 50 km/h
Road speed: 40 km/h
Cross country speed: 20 km/h
Ground clearence: 0.4 m
Min turning radius: 7.7 m
Combat radius: 300 km
Fording Depth: 1.3 m
Step Climbing: 0.73 m
Climbing Degrees: 35 degrees
Trench Crossing: 2.5 m

So what exactly is wrong with what I wrote ? As far as I can tell I am being pretty spot on! The Tiger Ausf.B does pretty darn well for its size & weight, not being far behind the the most mobile of the tanks, the Panther & T-34.

So I think this has more to do with you being biased rather than me writing anything false!

So now people can decide who's the most idiotic if they like..

 

T.A.,

As you can see the Tiger Ausf.B actually has better obstacle clearing capabilities than tanks such as the Sherman & Panzer IV, and holds up very well against the T-34 & Panther. The IS-2 was much worse, so I can't understand why you would say it was better.

Furthermore the optics are truthfully shoddy in the Soviet T-34 & IS-2, I've looked through them, it's bad. The German gun sight optics are far far better, it's a whole different deal, the optics are crystal clear ( And they are over 60 years old!) and provide a much wider field of view than any Soviet, US or UK sights. I can provide the technical details on each sight later, then you can see for yourself.

And good optics are essential to your ability to accurately reach out and hit your enemy. I can certainly understand why German tankers generally felt relatively safe at ranges of over 800 meters against Soviet tanks, according to them they could hardly hit anything beyond that range. (Otto Carius I believe once remarked on this) German tankers on the other hand often started engaging enemy tanks at ranges exceeding 2 km, and there are reports of IS-2's knocked out from over 4 km away by Nashorn crews.

As for the combat reports, the s.SS.Pz.Abt.503's Tiger Ausf.B's scored over 500 confirmed tanks knocked out in the period in between January & April 1945 for the loss of just 45 Tiger Ausf.B's, and by far the most of these were abandoned due to lack of fuel or break downs.

That's against a tank standing at an angle to the shot of 30 degrees T.A., not straight on. Straight on the Tiger E could knock the IS-2m out past 2 km without any problems (The KwK36 punched through 106 mm of vertical armour at 2700 yards at Aberdeen USA), the IS-2 after all only featured 100mm of frontal turret armour, something most German tank guns could punch through at most normal combat ranges. Even the PzIV was a very deadly opponent to the IS-2, being capable of punching through its' front turret at 1250 meters.

 

Simply quoting a random website isn't exactly stating the facts.

The stats you posted for the various tanks were quite obscure and you provided no analysis.

After T.A.'s post I really don't have much else to say about the Tiger II...

 

I would say that when comparing the optics of the T-34 and the Panther, the Panther would indeed come out on top. The T-34/76's firepower was handicapped by the lack of a dedicated gunner, forcing the tank commander to first acquire the target with the PTK periscope and then switch to the TMFD gunner's sight. The TMFD was inferior to the Panther's TFZ12 sight, having a narrower field of view and less magnification. However, the T-34/76 did have one advantage over the Panther in terms of firepower, and that was its turret traverse speed. The T-34/76 had a turret traverse speed of about 30º per second, or 12 seconds for a full rotation, which was five times faster than the Panther Ausf. D and 50 percent faster than the Panther Ausf A.

 

First, Proeliator, I won't call you an idiot or other names. Anyone who has been here a while knows I treat others respectfully even when they don't share that view themselves (not that you haven't).

Let's just stick to mobility for the moment. Your stats above are "book" values and of little relevance on their own or outside the world of engineering test tracks.
When it comes to off road vehicular mobility there are two broad categories that really matter: Agility and flotation.
Agility is automotive performance. Acceleration, torque, tractive power, that sort of thing. Flotation is how the vehicle's wheels, tracks, or whatever interact with the soil / ground under them. These two factors in combination are what really matters in determining an AFV's mobility at a tactical, and sometimes operational, level.

For example, the Sherman uses a rubber bushed double pin track that is tensioned and has return rollers. While this track is not as efficent at low speeds, say under 15 mph it is actually more efficent energy-wise at speeds above that. The result is that a Sherman driving on a paved road (like in a long road march) is more economical and has less rolling resistance than a tank with a steel track lacking return rollers.
Steel tracks also have the bad disadvantage of being very hard on most paved road surfaces. These tracks will generally tear the road up in short order. This too is a problem particularly if there are follow on units needing to use the road.

Then there is the issue of straight weight. Heavier vehicles are restricted on what surfaces they can move and this is true to an extent regardless of ground pressure exerted by the vehicle. Here, a very heavy tank like the Tiger is at a disadvantage. It will damage all but the most heavily built roads (and in the WW II era there were few roads designed for a load use of 50 tons or more). It is restricted on what bridges it can cross (one reason the Germans increased fording capacity).

Acceleration is how lively the vehicle is. How quick it can go from a standing start to whatever speed. This is important for a combat vehicle actually. A smooth and quick acceleration allows a crew to move out of danger more rapidly. A higher horsepower to weight ratio also says something about torque and maneuverability or "liveliness" of the vehicle.

Anyway, what you find is that the Germans and US as two examples had very different ideas about what tanks were for and what criteria they were looking for in them. Clearly the Germans were far more concerned about the defensive capacity of their tanks. They sought long range gunfire and antitank performance. Their armor layouts more and more reflected a view that engagements would be head on. There was less concern about operational mobility that would be required in a deep offensive operation or breakthrough.
The US on the other hand concerned themselves more, at least initially, with operational mobility. Their tanks were optimized for use in breakthroughs and not tank on tank combat. Good road and high speed automotive performance gave them what they were looking for. Excellent maintainability and reliability added to this too.

Then the US coupled this with an unmatched civil engineering capacity. That is they could build roads where none existed. They could bridge rivers of any size in hours (the 291st Engineer battalion put three bridges across the Rhine in less than 24 hours as one example). The inclusion of masses of heavy construction machinery in engineer battalions and dozer tanks in tank battalions made a huge difference.
For the Germans, if a bridge that could take a Tiger didn't exist for a river crossing it might be a week or more before the crossing could occur if the tank could not ford the river.

Soils are another factor in the mobility equation. The Soviets set their tank design ground pressure for all but the heaviest vehicles at about 9 psi, at least initially. This value was chosen as it allows mobility on saturated chernozym soil common in Russia. Above this value a tank would break the crust of the soil and become bogged in the muck below.
Thus, the repeated German surprise at the Soviets operating tanks in places they assumed tanks could never go.

You see, I see you as looking at this like sports statistics. How many touchdowns, home runs, plays made etc., by individual players. But, tanks don't operate in a vacuum. They are part of a larger system in modern warfare. It is the system that needs examination. On the part of the Germans they failed to appreciate the need for a good maintenance and civil engineering system to go with their mechanized units.
Instead, they optimized their equipment for great tactical performance. The US and Soviets optimized theirs for great operational performance as part of a much larger system. The result was the Germans could win locally more often than not but ended up losing the larger battle virtually every time.
It was a design flaw in itself that their doctrine had them producing the wrong kind of tanks for the war they were fighting.