The other DrC and I saw the Brad Pitt World War II tank corps film Fury this afternoon. It concerns the crew of a Sherman heavy tank fighting its way across Europe in the late days of WW II. It was appropriately dirty, gloomy, bloody and realistic in technical details. We enjoyed it.
I won't engage in spoilers, for plot details you'll need to see the film. The film company had at their disposal at least four operational Shermans and one German Tiger. It was good to see and hear these brutal beasts in action.
Watching, you got the (accurate) impression that the German tanks were superior. But Germans didn't win the war as they lost control of the air and simply couldn't produce enough of their superior tanks.
For a discussion of the relative merits of German and U.S. WW II tanks, see a Richard Fernandez review of Steve Zalonga's book Panther vs. Sherman which deals with this subject. Zalonga makes the point that whichever tank was firing from concealment often won the engagement, meaning the tank out in the open attacking was at increased risk.
It didn't hurt to have the other fellow outnumbered, either, which advantage greater numbers of U.S. tanks often afforded. Zalonga also alleges U.S. tanks were more reliable and spent more time operational and less time in the shop than German tanks.
