The T-34 was the greatest tank of World War II

My opponent continuously ignores the ease of production, cost per tank, and overall numerical superiority that the T-34 offered over the Panther. The T-34 was designed specifically as a tank which could be easily mass produced, and in such a way that the loss of one tank would not affect the war effort in any way. Tanks are designed to kill, plain and simple. The easier they are to manufacture, and the more tanks you have the more enemy you can kill. The T-34's greatest triumph was the process through which it was mass produced. On to the Panther tank, my opponents claim that the Panther was effective and a great tank is wrong. In the Battle of Kursk the LARGEST tank battle in the history of mankind, only 184 Panthers were deployed, 44 were removed because of mechanical failure, 56 were removed because of damage caused by AT mines and enemy fire, 58 Panthers were completely lost by the end of Operation Citadel, by day 3 of the operation only 40 out of 184 Panthers were operational, by day 6 of the operation only 10 out of 184 Panthers were operational. By the time the Soviets launched their counteroffensive 96 new Model D Panthers were delivered to the front line, unfortunately by the end of this counteroffensive approximately 98 Panthers were lost, mainly due to abandonment and scuttling by the crew. These numbers show pretty clearly how ineffective the Panther was. On the reliability, when the Panther D tank was designed, Heinz Guderian, Inspector-General of the Wehrmacht Armored Troops, demanded a tank which had superior maneuverability to the T-34. However, what he got was a 45 ton tank with a petrol engine, front wheel drive, and poor suspension. The designers opted for a complex set of interleaved road wheels, which were quick to clog up with mud, something very common on the eastern front in spring and summer. This interleaved road wheel system made it very difficult to change a damaged inner wheel as you would have to take off multiple other wheels, requiring much more time and energy than the simple system used on the T-34. In 1943 no panzer unit equipped with Panther D and early model Panther A tanks was able to sustain an operational readiness rate above 35%, this means that 65% of the Panthers deployed were removed from service due to the need for repairs. More Panthers were lost to mechanical problems in 1943 than to enemy combat. The transmission system was extremely poor as 5 percent broke within 100km and almost 90 percent broke down within 1,500km, additionally when the transmission broke down it was required that the Panther be sent back to the factory for a complete overhaul. The final drive on the Panther D was so bad that it could not turn the tank while backing up. The fuel pumps were also a huge problem; they would often leak and cause massive engine fires, rendering the tank nonoperational. 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 the Panther A tanks were first being distributed to the SS-Leibstandarte in Italy, September 1943, they were so poor that every single one was rejected for service. The Panther D was a 45 ton tank running on a chassis built for a 24 ton vehicle with very poor mobility and reliability. Many of these design flaws were due directly to the designers, however many were also caused by sabotage. My opponent forgets that Germany used slave labor, comprised mainly of Jews and Soviet POW's, to build the Panther. As one can imagine they attempted to sabotage the tank in every place they could. Many Panther crewman reported obstruction's in the oil pipes, loosened bolts, and other deliberate acts of sabotage. The Panther G was designed to "fix" many of the problems of the early model A and D tanks. However they were not much better. They had very poor fuel consumption rates, much like the Panther A and D model. The Panther G could get only 60-80 miles on road and 40-50 miles cross country with about 190 gallons of gasoline, in comparison the T-34 could go 115 miles on the road and around 70 miles cross country with only 120 gallons of diesel fuel. They attempted to improve the suspension but this was a failure, when turning in place the suspension was badly over-stressed and suffered from premature stripping of the third gear, which would render the tank non-operational. The single teeth spur gears would often strip very readily in combat, requiring that the tank be sent to rear motor pools, as this could not be changed in the field. In 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge, units' equipped Panther G tanks had only 40% operationally ready. One of the largest problems the Panther had was that it was so complex, in most instances nobody knew how to fix them, field repairs or even motor pool repairs could not be performed, instead they would have to be shipped all the way back to the factories to be overhauled. Additionally like the Panther D and A, the G model was shipped by train as long marches with Panthers was near impossible, the breakdown rate caused by a long period of travel would simply result in too many costly repairs. I recommend my opponent watches these two videos: http://military.discovery.com... http://military.discovery.com... They delve deeply into the numerous mechanical problems the Panther had, and just how unreliable a tank it was. The Panther was not a good tank, let alone a great tank.