Now, a word of caution. It would be wrong to conclude that because the Allied powers were able to outproduce the Germans, what they were producing was necessarily inferior. It’s a trope at this point that superior German engineering was really only overcome through hordes of overmatched Allied tanks and soldiers, and I’m sure someone will be along shortly to snidely misquote Stalin that “quantity has a quality all of its own,” but it’s not true. The Allied powers not only manufactured more weapons of war, but they were typically just as good as anything they faced, if not better.

Take for example the Tiger I and Panther series of tanks. There’s been something of a mythos built up about them, and they often appear in media as a classic example of German technical superiority. In movies like Kelly’s Heroes, Fury, and Saving Private Ryan, single Tiger tanks are depicted as almost untouchable adversaries that can only be overcome through cunning, extreme daring, or almost divine intervention. They were without a doubt imposing vehicles, so their portrayal as the ultimately dangerous enemy likely has something to do with the aesthetics of so many tons of steel looming before the camera. Attachment to the myth of their superiority also makes sense from an entertainment point of view, because the existence of a credible opponent makes the protagonist’s victory all the more satisfying. However, their myth has far outpaced reality. German tanks were never as good as they’re remembered.

The Tiger I in particular endured a disastrous debut when they were first rushed into combat outside of Leningrad in late August of 1942. To the German command’s chagrin, they suffered repeated breakdowns because they were deployed before their design had been refined through testing. Their predictable mechanical failures were then compounded by the fact that there had been no doctrine developed for the proper use of these new heavy tanks, and so they took excessive losses in attacks across boggy, unsuitable ground, or in ambush when they charged forward unsupported. The ultimate result of this early deployment was little tactical gain for the loss of prematurely revealing their new weapon to the Soviets so that they would have more time to develop tactics against it. 

In the case of the battle around Leningrad, the task of countering these new weapons was as simple as positioning anti-tank guns in depth along the few avenues of attack that the Tiger was capable of traveling upon. For all the trumpeting of its thick armor and heavy gun, the Tiger I was effectively immobile in a strategic sense. Its tactical mobility was also precarious in the thick forests of northern Russia. Because its interleaved wheels were prone to binding up if excessive mud, snow, or ice was caught between them, and because of persistent problems with track-slippage in rough terrain, the Tiger I required good quality roads or dry ground to move reliably, and neither was likely to be found in winter of 1942. Though they claimed high kill counts, even Guderian admits that the Tiger I had almost no strategic impact upon its introduction. Its anemic debut is probably to do with the fact that the German heavy armor unit “never had more than four operational Tigers at the same time” due to mechanical deficiencies and the lack of a robust supply chain. Of the six Tigers which were lost, half were destroyed by their own crews because they were stuck or broken down. 

This performance was then repeated near Anzio when a single Tiger detachment took about 60% casualties during a 200 km road march. Despite being deployed to Italy, they were incapable of navigating Italy’s countryside. And, for all the steel in their glacis armor, they were defeated by nothing more than inclined roads. The strain was apparently so great that one Tiger’s engine compartment caught fire and the entire tank exploded when the fire reached the ammunition.

The story is much the same for the Panther. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the [T-34] and KV series tanks came as a grim surprise to German military planners that had made unfounded assumptions about slavic inferiority. Those tanks -- the first with its sloped armor and sleek profile, the second with its enormous cannon and thick armor -- overmatched anything the Germans were fielding. Previously the Germans had thought that the relatively petite Panzer III would be sufficient as their main tank design,  but encounters with the British Matilda, French Char Bis 1, and heavier Soviet tanks proved that assumption false. The Panther’s development was therefore rushed forward because of a desperately felt need to field heavier armor. Rather than being technologically superior, Germany was playing catch up at the start of the war.

However, what began as a 30 ton medium tank in the style of the T-34 soon ballooned to a more than 40 ton monster. The added weight was in the turret and glacis, which no doubt were excellently armed and armored, but it came at the cost of undue strain on a powertrain that wasn’t up to the task of moving so much weight. The entire first batch of Panthers to be dispatched from the factories had to be recalled to undergo a complete rebuild before they even reached the battlefield. Despite that early attempt to correct the Panther’s mechanical deficiencies, their performance at Kursk was still lackluster. In a German report commissioned by Guderian, it was noted that the 52nd Panzer Regiment had experienced 20 fuel pump failures only three days into the offensive. Even when the pump operated, the porous fuel lines caused leaks, and fumes would pool in the engine bay and sometimes disorient the crew due to poor ventilation. The same for the residue from the gun’s propellant. Though they weren’t all Panthers, the Grossdeutschland Division “had only 80 of its 300 tanks still fit for combat” by the second night of the battle. “Most of the disabled tanks were new models laid up in the shops by mechanical troubles.” Even something as simple as trying to start the engine on a steep slope could lead to disaster: the Panther would often simply catch on fire because of accumulation of flammable grease and fumes in the crew compartment.

Following their victory at Kursk, the Soviets captured a number of Panther tanks that they dispatched to testing grounds in the rear so as to take their measure. The conclusion was that when compared against a domestic variant like the IS-122, the Panther had excellent optics and a good gun as well as a well armored front glacis, but overall was not as “tactically adaptable.” The “reliability, overall design and technological level of the components and assemblies of the Panther,” was noted to be markedly less than previous German designs, and the engine in particular was singled out as a source of “constant breakdowns.”