Complicating the issue of best tank ....

[FanOfGermanMilitaryMight]

One of the problems with discussing a subject like 'best tank of world war 2'; is that it can be very hard to distinguish between the tank and the extraordinary skill of the German tanker.

People like Wittmann were literally a part of their tank and understood their machines like lovers understand each other. Thus whatever deficiencies the Tiger may have had, in the hands of Wittmann, those deficiencies disappeared. He would know exactly how to cover his weaknesses, while exploiting his strengths to devastating effect.

In that sense, the only way to know which tank was the best, would be to go back in time and replace the tanks of star operators like Wittmann and Barkmann with various other tanks and see how they performed. A lot of the German 'superstar' Panzer Kaisers would probably have been almost as deadly/potent in horse drawn battle chariots. It was, in effect, the perfect marriage of mind and machine. The German tanker, and the German tank. Witness the outrageous numbers of kills individual German tankers/executioners would rack up.

It was the same story in the Luftwaffe, with men like Erich Hartmann and Erich Rudorffer. These men would persist with aircraft that had become obsolete, shunning better aircraft like the FW-190 and yet still tear their enemies to pieces.
P.S. If you're not German, have you ever tried to use a Mercedes-Benz/Blaupunkt stereo? Those things have amazing features even the Jap electronics specialists haven't thought of, but it's well-nigh impossible to take advantage of all those features. It's almost like Germans expect the same amount of brilliance/excellence from the person who operates their products, as that which they put into making it in the first place. This is the philosophy that made men like Wittmann so awe-inspiring.

[DeBaer]

well, you have to see that most of these men fought from the beginning of the war (or already in the spanish civil war), and therefore could increase their skills much longer in real combats against weaker enemies, than americans or russians or brits could. german late war recruits werent any better than their allied counterparts. its all about experience, not about german and non-german. (its the same with Mercedes-Benz, they have a long tradition and also a lot of experience)

[leopard 2]

Of course that is a conditional solution to see which tank is the best, but it's impossible, so we have two solutions: 1) find another way to chosse the best tank or 2) forget this topic and stop asking the question of the best tank...

I would addthat, if Wittmann was so a great tankman, there are most definitely some guys who were as great as him, but did not have the chance to get into a Tiger, maybe always in a Pz III...

So, by some mathematical reasons, you have to think that, if the panzer aces seem to have been always in Tiger and/or Panther... we have to conclude that those tanks were better than the others, isn't it?

I'ms sorry, I don't want to say that Wittmann was not the best, I really don't know his accomplishements enough.
I hope I am understood

Vincent