The unreliability of late war panthers is overdone, apparently. There was some Canadian paper I read a while back which basically said the reason their operation levels were so low during the battle of the bulge was that they were taking unsustainable levels of battle damage, and that there was a shortage of spare parts *laughs in bombing campagins*

Part of the over reporting of tank kills is that it's rather hard to permanently destroy a tank, no? Put a hole in it? Weld a plate over the hole and replace the working parts (and crew). As long as you were the one gaining ground you could recover your own smoked tanks.

One of the biggest differences between late and early war tanks was air support, imo. (In terms of production the Nazis were spending like 40% of their 1940 military budgey on the airforce, and only 3% on their mechanised (inc. half tracks). Tank warfare without air superiority and support is kinda difficult. (e.g. two of the biggest things in tank warfare was surprise and supply lines. Air superiority helps with both.).