Which tank is stronger

The big problem the Germans had (IIRC) was with mud clogging up in between the inter-leaved bogies, then freezing.
Obviously, this was not an issue with Christie suspension.

 

Hoosier wrote

Indeed, apparently German engineers were disgusted when inspecting capture T-34s because of the "shoddy finish" on the welds. Until one who was smarter than the others pointed that nicely-ground-off welds do't improve combat capability, but taking time to grind them down does slow the rate of production...
And AFAIK T-55 etc were designed for a combat life somewhere in the region of seven to ten minutes. Same goes for guns, I think it was in Tony Williams' first book where he makes the comment that the guns are designed for combat (ie short life and therefore lighter than Western ones) as opposed to being designed to work until the next model of gun comes along to be accepted for service.
Oli