Ride into Battle with Your Tank!

I’d pick the M26 Pershing.  It was the only American tank of WWII that was in the same league as the Tiger and Panther in terms of firepower (it had a 90mm main gun) and armour protection.  Its biggest problems had to do with mobility and mechanical reliability.  Interestingly, this was a complete reversal from the situation of the Sherman, which was excellent as an automotive vehicle but deficient in firepower and protection.

Another advantage of going into combat with it was that it came into service so late that it only saw a brief period of fighting in Europe before the war ended…so it would have been a pretty safe choice.  :)

Evening Worsham and Marc. Sorry I has not had much time to post and chat recently.

I thought of a Jagdpanther in Autumn of 44 somewhere in the Moselle. Good defensive terrain, somewhere I could fire and pull out to another defensible position. Would need some Panzergrenadiers to watch my flanks and to eliminate any troublesome Inf. of course.
Would have said Normandy with a Tiger, but did not want to be too predictable!

To me it would be still a tie between a Tiger I and a Hetzer.
While I love the superior quality about the Tiger ,I would miss the flair of fast movements and setting up for an ambush and retreat really quick with a 38 t Hetzer.  :-)
And of course the two different qualities of Tanks and the job each one is doing.

Argentina’s Nahuel D.L. 43 comes to mind. Argentina declared war on the Axis powers in 1945, and because the Nahuel was a decent tank and never saw action, I would certainly feel confident to face my historical enemies while driving around in one.

On a more serious note: an important question would be, precisely when those enemies would be faced. If the answer is “at any time during the war”, then the choice for a late model from either side seems like an obvious one. But if the answer is: “when the tank first saw battle”, then I’d be looking at the Soviet Union for innovative tank design. The T-34 would be my choice, because the Germans just couldn’t do much against it when it first appeared in 1941. It was this tank that forced Germany to reconsider its own tank design.
And yes, I know that by the end of the war, the T-34 had been surpassed by many other tanks.

IS-2 with it I get basically a german tiger sized tank with massive air support.

Panther. deadly accurate and tough to kill. i would hide from the Bolshevik air power and kill their beloved T-34s.

You sound like me Poloplayer! Maybe you would get a Joseph Stalin too.

I lure 'em out for you poloplayer15 with my Tiger I late version.
I’ll take the hits, retread about a hundred meters backward into your firerange.
Brake out from your position then Polo and we will smash them!

Who’s with us?!

Nasty! I love tanks, but it must have been horrific to be hit while in one.

@wittmann:

Nasty! I love tanks, but it must have been horrific to be hit while in one.

The nasty result in most cases is that the crew is either torn apart by flying shreds of metal or is incinerated.  The Germans called the Shermans which the US had issued to the British Army “Tommy cookers.”

Ill join your noble quest. together we push towards Moscow! the Bolshevik scum will not know what hit them!!! Our Tigers and Panthers will lead the way to victory over the Socialists.

@poloplayer15:

Ill join your noble quest. together we push towards Moscow! the Bolshevik scum will not know what hit them!!! Our Tigers and Panthers will lead the way to victory over the Socialists.

until 40,000 t-34s stand in the way

@poloplayer15:

Ill join your noble quest. together we push towards Moscow! the Bolshevik scum will not know what hit them!!! Our Tigers and Panthers will lead the way to victory over the Socialists.

You forgot I will be alongside you in my Jagdpanther.
With my  L/71 88, I will keep the Heavies from getting within 2000 metres of our Schwerpunkt. The T34s will be scuttling back, reversing into each other, the crews running back to Moscow and their mummies.

@wittmann:

With my  L/71 88, I will keep the Heavies from getting within 2000 metres of our Schwerpunkt. The T34s will be scuttling back, reversing into each other, the crews running back to Moscow and their mummies.

It might depend on whether this is a winter or summer campaign.  From the way the Eastern Front oscillated back and forth in 1941, 1942 and 1943 – with the Germans advancing in the summers and the Russians advancing in the winters – one might almost suspect that German tanks had forward gears that operated better in hot weather and reverse gears that operated better in cold weather, with the complete opposite being true for the Russian tanks.

@wittmann:

@poloplayer15:

Ill join your noble quest. together we push towards Moscow! the Bolshevik scum will not know what hit them!!! Our Tigers and Panthers will lead the way to victory over the Socialists.

You forgot I will be alongside you in my Jagdpanther.
With my  L/71 88, I will keep the Heavies from getting within 2000 metres of our Schwerpunkt. The T34s will be scuttling back, reversing into each other, the crews running back to Moscow and their mummies.

Never! My heroic comrades will sweep the evil fascist hordes away and avenge their violation of the holy Motherland! We will raise the Red Banner over the smouldering remains of your Panzer, and make jokes about not two of them being the same, and all of them breaking down while waiting for trucks with spare parts that got hopelessly stuck in our rasputitsa.

@Herr:

@wittmann:

@poloplayer15:

Ill join your noble quest. together we push towards Moscow! the Bolshevik scum will not know what hit them!!! Our Tigers and Panthers will lead the way to victory over the Socialists.

You forgot I will be alongside you in my Jagdpanther.
With my  L/71 88, I will keep the Heavies from getting within 2000 metres of our Schwerpunkt. The T34s will be scuttling back, reversing into each other, the crews running back to Moscow and their mummies.

Never! My heroic comrades will sweep the evil fascist hordes away and avenge their violation of the holy Motherland! We will raise the Red Banner over the smouldering remains of your Panzer, and make jokes about not two of them being the same, and all of them breaking down while waiting for trucks with spare parts that got hopelessly stuck in our rasputitsa.

I’m really enjoying this nostalgic tribute to the over-the-top military exhortations that the two sides on the Eastern Front indulged in during WWII.  And each side quite often genuinely meant it.  On their way to Berlin in 1945, for example, advancing Soviet troops put a sign next to the road saying “50 KILOMETERS TO THE LAIR OF THE FASCIST BEAST.”  I think there’s a picture of it in Cornelius Ryan’s book The Last Battle.